The Slushy Machine Ultra | EP 95

[00:00] In the beginning, episode 95, Courtney Atkinson, how are you? I'm good, mate, but I had a situation this morning. I was driving back over the lights from Pacific Fair and I saw a guy walking, and he was walking funny, and it made me think about something. You think about super shoes, right? I've got a theory. OK, great to run in, no doubt, after the marathon I'm sold. But this walking around in super shoes, yeah, the more I'm seeing it, the more I'm thinking it's

[00:31] not good for your health, this guy. It looks like we're seeing that in trail running circles too, 'cause we are dipping our toes into Alphaflys in the wild. Is it? Yes. Well, it's not just Alphaflys, it's not the only culprit. No, no, no, this is an expansion, but I've seen it enough now that I think people have got to have a serious think about walking around in these super shoes. You walk backwards in them. So I was watching this guy walk across the lights on his heels, and as every step goes, and anyone

[01:03] who's worn them will understand, every step, literally instead of walking forward across his toes, he's walking backwards. Then it made me think — I was driving to the Gold Coast Marathon, and I was watching another fella walk across the lights in front of me, and he's ready to race in his super shoes. Excusable, given the fact he was going to a race, right, but the same situation, I thought he's gonna hurt himself before he even gets to the race. Went through the airport the other day, same situation. You pick him out from a mile and it's gotta stop.

[01:34] It has to stop. You're not helping yourselves. Look, we know that brands like Salomon and ASICS, more and more, the street style is a big market. Why can't carbon shoes crossover? Why can't super shoes crossover? Well, they can, but that doesn't mean they should. What damage is that doing? I'm assuming you're talking about your walking gait,

[02:05] assuming your walking gait — if you're serious about your running and serious about staying uninjured, don't walk around in your super shoes. OK, let's just put a pin in it there, I think we can probably put a pin in it there. Hey, what are you doing with this? Well, actually I'm not sure if I know that too. This is the Mighty Gold Coast — I'm rolling the Mighty Gold. I know who it is. Why are you rolling it? I like it today. Well, this is kind of, let me quickly — super shoes, big shout out to my brother in law.

[02:44] I should get an update, yeah, he's gonna run the half of the GC50. I'm just wearing — look, I've got one of the Gold Coast Suns bright pink soccer shirt numbers. This is the Gold Coast Titans, similar vein. Is this a special? It's just a bit of merch they've got available. Look, more and more we've talked about this previously, that soccer strip trend has invaded all kinds of sports. I wouldn't call that a soccer one though. I still think it's kind of soccer inspired, don't you?

[03:15] I don't think so. I think that's just purely a funky number, it's out there. Have you been out there at the press conference or something? No, no, no, I'm just supporting local. Mate, good to see you later, Mayor of the Gold Coast. I'm coming as soon as Tom Tate hangs up the robes, I'm in. You're on enough bus stops to run for mayor at the moment. Wanted to get into something you sent me — yes. Now let me just catch this by saying we are doing this

[03:49] with — I say with the utmost respect to women's athletes, female athletes, and a celebration of running. If there's one thing you can't accuse us of on this podcast, it's not loving running. We bloody love it. We've been talking about it for 95 episodes. Yeah, you sent me a story from Runner's World. I saw a pop up from Runner's World, where they were

[04:20] talking about the new broadcasting rights, the recommendations that are coming into play around women's athletics meets and the broadcasting. Was it women's athletic meets, or is it just general athletics meets, full stop, targeted towards the females of the sport? And basically the crux of it, from Runner's World, is that the recommendations for the

[04:51] broadcasters of the sport are that they aim up — i.e. not slow-mo-ing, not sexualising, basically trying to avoid camera angles which make it uncomfortable, or inappropriate, potentially, for the female athletes if some of these shots were to be slowed down. They're basically saying let's try and take sex out of the sport, is the crux of these recommendations, as I read them.

[05:23] They want to focus on the athletic, focus on the performance, not the silhouette. Yeah, again, I'm going to say I'm going to couch all this with the fact that I'm a bloke, two of us here, we're both blokes reading through this. It's really interesting, and I would love if women who listen to this would give us their thoughts, tell us what they think about this. We might put the link in the

[05:53] show notes if we can, I'd love to get your thoughts, 'cause this is just my opinion. This article talks about the fact that some athletes can be made to feel uncomfortable by the camera angles chosen when they're competing, and it can also find the placement of the cameras off-putting. To that extent, change it — if I think if any professional athlete in their workplace is being made to feel uncomfortable by the positioning of a broadcast camera, change it,

[06:26] now. I work in broadcast media, I work in radio. Personally I hate the fact that in AFL and NRL there are video cameras in the rooms. I hate it, I'd change it. I think that as much as the access, and sometimes you get great blow-ups and clips and all the rest of it, I think those athletes should be able to go into the rooms at half time and have privacy, be able to dissect and break down. I also hate when they cross to the NRL State of Origin coaches mid-call during the broadcast.

[06:58] Leave them alone. Something's going to be said on the phone, they're doing their job, more access is not always the best thing. So there are parts of broadcast media that I disagree with as well. I think if these athletes are feeling made to feel uncomfortable by the angles being shot and by the placement of the cameras, you change them. You let them execute their profession in the safest, best possible environment. The idea of desexualising sport isn't so straightforward, I think, because the reality of

[07:30] the human race is that elite athletes, from a purely aesthetic perspective, are the best of us on both sides — very, very good specimens, both male and female. You run around — look, I'm not filling out this shirt as well as what AJ Brimson or Cooper Bai or any of the other actual Titans players do. Similarly, Tegan, Levi and the other NRLW Titans

[08:00] players — I'm not filling out this shirt like they do, because they are professional athletes whose job it is to get in shape and stay in shape and be in the best shape possible. And for the most part, as humans we are drawn to things that are appealing to the eye, and most athletes fit that bill. And this isn't a new thing across sports, right? Surfing went through this in a very big way with women's surfing, volleyball, beach volleyball — remember there was a big campaign to change the uniforms

[08:30] because of what they were going through. I don't know what the answer is, especially when we're moving into a world now where a lot of these athletes, again because of their job as elite athletes, because of the physical shape they keep themselves in, can have hugely successful careers on social media and make far more money off-field than what they make as an athlete, because of the shape they've kept themselves in. So the notion that you turn the athletics track into a

[09:03] completely non-sexual environment, I don't think it's that easy, I don't think it's that straightforward. I do support the idea of celebrating the performance. And I don't actually think, for the most part, what's great about athletics, if you take it into that athletics arena, is the moments — the look on Sally Pearson's face as she crossed the line after winning that 100m hurdles gold, not the uniform she was

[09:33] wearing. And I think back to Nicola Olyslagers, the high jumper — what's great about the broadcast of her performance is, as well as the sheer effort of jumping over that two-metre high jump, the way she goes back and writes in her journal. And you think about Nina Kennedy, the reaction as she crashes down after winning the Olympic gold — those moments, I don't know how much they have to do with the uniform and the female form. For me, I can only

[10:05] speak for myself here. So while I understand what they're trying to do with these recommendations, I don't know if it's completely necessary, but if there are athletes saying it is, then find a way to work with your employees, because that's what the athletes are. But then there's that other side of it, where the physical form of all these athletes is kind of part of the way they make money — not just because of what their physical body can do, but also because of the way it looks.

[10:35] It goes both ways, right. We're only talking about this from the female perspective because that's kind of what the article details, quite always focused on that. I think it's actually across the board. I mean, if you think about it, the majority of performance sports, whatever you're gonna wear, whether it's triathlon, cycling, whatever it is, there's not much left to the imagination. You're literally running around in Lycra no matter which of these sports you're doing. Look at Shervo — you know, who's now

[11:06] the breakfast host of the highest-rating breakfast programme in Australia — the joke was always, yeah, Shervo's lunch box, because he ran in tights. And I think to take it back to your sport as well, you talk about running around in not very much your entire career. We've seen those moments — I can't remember the race, I think it was a T100 event where I can't remember her name, she said politely to the camera, 'I've just skidded myself, can you not film back there?' It's

[11:36] this kind of thing — when you're an elite athlete, you are exposing your body to varying degrees depending on your sport. Swimmers, I mean, swimming and diving and all these sports where you literally didn't have to wear much, you had to wear not much at all. Did you ever feel uncomfortable? Nah, I never really thought about it. Interestingly, I spent 20 years of my life not only racing

[12:08] in Lycra but then riding around in Lycra on the road too. Now if I avoid Lycra — yeah, but maybe that's your case, you want to wear it safe at the Gold Coast Marathon. Exactly, I want to cover up. So maybe I understand to a degree what some might go through. But anyway, 100% people are going to sit on both sides of the fence here. So let us know, it's an interesting conversational topic. Let us know what you think if you're listening along. Just quickly on this, I also know, again, not a female,

[12:43] never been an elite athlete, so jumping into somewhat, it's not necessarily my wheelhouse, but my cousin played in the WNBL, and she played in the bodysuit era, right, but she also played in what they are now, which is the same uniform that men play in, in shorts and singlets. And that was an example where the bodysuit era was probably what came about because — and I'm going to guess it might have been a bloke making the decisions about the uniforms in the women's league — might have been, don't know for sure.

[13:16] The athletes, as far as I know, said we don't like playing in this. The game doesn't need it, it's not helping our athletic performance, let us play in something that makes us more comfortable. And now we see the WNBA playing in — and then another trend as well. So it all comes around. Let us know, please, let us know what you think. Just before we move on from elite athletes in uniforms, did you see Jannik Sinner, who won

[13:48] men's Wimbledon this year, the Italian player, in his Nike Radical Airflow uniform? No? Yeah, looked good. He wore it at Wimbledon — it wasn't what he wore during the final, but you know how they kind of all get into that because Wimbledon is a fashion parade now as much as it is a tennis tournament. Naomi Osaka proved that with what she walked out in. But Nike, he was in the Radical Airflow jacket. Well, good segue, because I was going to leave it till

[14:18] later, but Nike, with their ACG brand, in conjunction, as a collaboration with Rivian, which is like a Hilux here in Australia — an American version, not sure if we actually see them around. Never seen a Rivian before. Rivian, look, this is possibly my favourite thing ever. It just happened to come from Nike ACG, but regardless of the brand, this is possibly my favourite

[14:51] thing ever. They've got a truck focused, obviously, around the outdoors, and they've put a slushy machine in the back of it. So instead of, you know, when you see the campers rolling around and they've got their battery setups and then they hook it into an air fryer or a coffee machine — even these days, ago camping, these guys have gone one step better and just put in a slushy machine. Can you imagine rocking up at an aid station in the middle of summer, roll back to the car, open up the back

[15:23] tray, straight into a mango slush. Well, whenever you and I run together in the trails and we get back and you somehow have cold Red Bulls in there, I appreciate it. So I can't imagine what it would be like — because they've said that in a collaborative flurry, building on troves of athletic feedback, Rivian and Nike built the recharge truck in about 12 weeks to serve as a recovery base camp for mile 80 of a 100-mile trail race for ACG athletes. All right, so I didn't realise it's going to be, it's

[15:54] used, or it has been used, or it's going to be used in a race at mile 80. Oh my gosh, anyone in Australia, please do this — so the flavours are mango, and the other is in the middle of a trail race? Anyone who's seen it, let us know — have you seen a slushy machine in Australia in a trail race? This is next level, next level, you'd be able to do this, I mean, it doesn't take Rivian and Nike

[16:25] to put this together locally, but give props where props are due, that's amazing, I haven't seen it before. Well done, Nike really are — I feel like, with everything Adidas has achieved recently with the shoes, and Sebastian Sawe and all the rest of it, it feels like Nike's kind of going around a little bit. They're not going straight at Adidas on the performance front, but they are kind of circling the wagons around other areas.

[16:59] Yep, look, anyway — Slushy. Yes, slushy. Great. Sold. Sold. World Cup, staying with — yep, World Cup football. Now, as people listen to this, they'll be preparing for the final. We know Spain is in at the time of recording, we don't know whether England or Argentina is through to the final. But that's irrelevant, because with all the World Cup I've been consuming, the algorithm has started combining my joy of football with running now.

[17:29] Oh, right, OK, I've found some running — I've gone down a deep dive of running data from other codes, because what happened was it served me up this little nugget about Bournemouth, which is a team in the English Premier League. OK, Bournemouth's fitness test — yeah, right. Now their fitness test is a mile, right? It's interesting, soccer, keep going — what time do you think the expectation is for their players to be able to run the mile in?

[18:01] This is an English Premier League side, although I don't know if Bournemouth are in the Premier League right now — I'm going to take a stab at 1600 metres, 6 minutes. Faster, 5:35. It's pretty solid, 5:35. So do you reckon a soccer team have, like, as a team — you know, when we say, going back to AFL or union or league, you've got obviously different positions with very

[18:31] different physical aspects, and you wouldn't expect your big props to be able to run a mile as well as your backs. That's right. But do you reckon, I don't know enough about football, I've got the data — are they all similar, do they all need to run? The midfielders, the goalkeeper — the midfielders, typically I would expect to have a greater range and probably be leading that sort of fitness test as opposed to your centre backs, but they're still running, they're still

[19:02] moving up the field, down the field, up the field, yeah. Let's stay with that — they're all at 5:35, is there a fitness test for a mile? That's the expectation. What do you think the record is, in 90 minutes of football, for kilometres covered in an English Premier League game? I'm gonna take a stab here, I know a little bit about AFL stats, we'll get to AFL next — I'm gonna go 20-plus K. No, 13.24 K's is the record, held by Newcastle's Bruno Guimarães.

[19:33] Give me an S I would have thought it was higher. What do you think the top speed record is? So, top speed achieved by an EPL player — now for context, give me, you're staying, Bolt, yep — what's his speed in that world record 100 metres, is it 44 K's an hour? OK, so if 44K running is 3 minutes, K's is 20K an hour, so top speed, I'm gonna take a stab at 28 K an

[20:08] hour. Micky van de Ven achieved 37.38 K's an hour. Jesus, so he's still 7 K's off what you're saying Bolt's top speed was, but bear in mind, at what stage of a football game — if you sprint for 10 metres, that is basically the exact same as the top speed ever recorded in a game of AFL, which is by Geelong's Gary Rohan, who also ran 37.8 K's an hour. You've done your research — it's served me up lots of interesting things. Now, AFL, sticking with AFL, we've moved from soccer, the football World Cup, to AFL

[20:39] here. AFL's 2K time trial — a typical time trial, yeah. Do you know what the record is at draft camp? I don't know what the record is, but I'm gonna take a stab knowing some of the Suns' times and a few other teams — let's go, I'm gonna say 5:40. Forward, let's just call it round 40 — 5:28, Harry Sharp, formerly of the Brisbane Lions, now at the Melbourne Demons. 5:28 is what Harry Sharp's 2K time trial

[21:12] record is. It's quick, super quick, right? Greatest distance ever covered, ever recorded, in an AFL game — total distance, 18.9K, from Tom Scully. I'm getting closer. Last one I'll give you, because I really just loved all this — the NRL now has a different test, what they call the Bronco test, so it's a shuttle run test, cones at 20 metres, cones at 40 metres, cones at 60 metres.

[21:42] It replicates their game simulation, right, it's sort of like a beep test — you're out to the 20, you're back, out to the 40, back, out to the 60, back. The Bronco test has you do that five times on repeat, all up you run 1200 metres. Fastest time on record that I could find, what do you think it is? No idea, just throw it to me — 4:11. Yeah, 1200 metres, it's a very different type of running too, lots of turning around, but you know what surprises me about that is they do 1200 metres worth of those shuttles, that's a long

[22:12] distance to be shuttling. I'd love to try that, I might have to go out and give it a crack. For context, keep chatting because I just want to quickly look up — so Max Plath, for those that might not be aware, playing for the Dolphins, made his Origin debut this year — player built for Origin for Queensland fans, and the Dolphins are going superbly and Max has been a big part of that. 4:11, so, running the rough maths on that, he's running about 3:45 to 3:40 pace for the 1200

[22:42] metre efforts, which is amazing for a bloke who's probably weighing 90 to 95 kilos thereabouts. Which reminds me to get back to the runner insult that I was given the other day. The runner insult — I was handed an amazing backhand compliment whilst out for a run, by the way. You did that really — you've commentated before, haven't you? Wasn't you, I just jumped in when I said 'just keep going.' You just filled some time, it just rolled off the tongue, didn't it, Liam. We'll come back to your

[23:13] run comment, because what I was looking for is, for context, the standard 20-metre beep test that most people would have done at school — I was interested to know how far you run per level. That's a good question. So when you get up to — what do we go at, level? I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but level 13, like at high schools, you're going pretty decent, and as you get up towards more than 20, 21, that's the extreme levels of it.

[23:46] But in between, so at 13, you run 2.6 kilometres of shuttle to get to an average level, and it's a higher average level to do the best. Anyway, this was great, look, running — when I saw the opportunity to do a bit of a deep dive into running data across some different sports, that was very interesting. That, that is a good runner insult. Now it's interesting, so I was out earlier on in the week, I went out just straight out the front from Broadbeach, from the studios.

[24:16] Just went out and did 10K on about 5-minute pace. It's coming back, it's coming back, right, post-Miler, the running is coming back. The knees, the side of the knee, the ITB-type stuff, the exterior of that knee, which had been causing me problems — no dramas. Interestingly though, there is still a bit of trauma through the quads. Yeah, right, even this long, two months on, there's still a little bit of tenderness that doesn't normally exist in a 10K. I wonder — a Miler versus a marathon,

[24:46] how much difference, or how are you feeling? I ran with the crew this morning, jogged, yeah — no, I haven't uploaded it yet, so I'm not sure what pace it was, I was jogging slow. They wanted to run an hour and I told them I need to get back, so 50 minutes was me done. Yeah, so that's what I did, nothing's wrong, I'm just cautious, very cautious at the moment. But the comparison, sorry, the comparison between a Miler and a

[25:16] marathon, I'd love to understand — maybe something we'll dig into if I remember next week, just the difference in how much your muscles get absolutely annihilated. Subjectively, if we're looking at what we're going through, this Miler, I think, is still clear of that. But I was coming towards the end of this run and this old fella on a bike came past, and I had the headphones in, I was running with headphones, and I noticed he was trying to talk to me, so I took the headphones out and he just said, 'how far are we

[25:49] going?' and I was about 9 K's and I said, 'oh, I'm gonna do 10, I'm just coming back from an injury, working my way back into it, feel good though, feel good.' And he said, 'do you play footy?' — that is a runner and that is an insult. And I said, 'oh, I used to when I was a bit younger.' And he said, 'you look like a footy player,' and I thought about it, and if I'm half fooling

[26:21] it, he thinks I look like a footy player. It's not a bad thing to be told. We just talked about how, you just said you're filling out that shirt, but you rubbed off on you. You came in — elite athletes are the best of us, right, from a physical, aesthetic perspective, and I thought, that's a compliment. You should've asked him what position, mate. But then I realised he was basically saying, you run like a footy player, you don't look like you're built for the thing you're doing. Did you have a bit of quad

[26:52] slap or something going on? I was at 9K and I'm still coming back from injury, maybe the form's dipped a little bit, but he went on to tell me about — he's like, 'oh no, you're a dead ringer for an old fella who used to play football with, back in Wagga, played for St Kilda,' and all the rest of it. So again, if I want to go glass half full, he thinks I look like a football player. We were just talking earlier how good the physiques are of elite players. If I wanna go glass half empty, I've never looked like a runner. And if I'm honest, it brought back some trauma, because it takes

[27:23] me back to my running group I used to be part of in Sydney, Runners in the Dark — great bunch of fellas and girls, and I've met some great people through that. But I will never forget one morning when we were out on one of these runs, and I'm at my usual spot at the back of the group, and I was running with three blokes who were all talking about their ideal race weight when they were tuning up for a marathon or a 10K, where they'd be running at about 67 kilos.

[27:53] I haven't been 67 kilos since I reckon I was 11. Yeah, well, you know the old rule, don't compare, Liam. But here's a question — would you prefer to have the physique of an elite footy player, or would you prefer to have the physique of an elite runner? Footy player, I don't — I want to be able to help my wife with the shopping out of the cart.

[28:23] Kidding, kidding. It doesn't bring me to a point though, Courtney, and we're going to get to this a bit later, but somehow we've segued into it — I do have a new goal for myself, and it is a weight-loss goal, 'cause I reckon since the Miler finished. Does this have anything to do with what you were told this morning? No, it didn't actually, I'd already set myself a bit of a target — I reckon I've got to lose about 6 kilos. For what reason? Just because running's harder

[28:56] when it's heavier. This goes back to something you and I have always talked about, the Clydesdales and the Athenas — salute you, that's all it is, harder running when you're heavier than you used to be. Like even just that 10K at 5-minute pace, that 10K at 5-minute pace during my training for the 100-miler was a three-out-of-ten effort. It was nothing, it was just a run. That one I did during the week — I normally roll at about 77 kilos, which again is bigger for

[29:29] a runner anyway, but at the moment I'm at 83. It's hard, it makes running really hard. So I am on a mission, and I don't like the idea of — I never want to promote the idea of weight loss for the sake of looking good, or for any vain reason. You just want to run better. I want to run better, and easier again. I want to run easier, train easier. I'm about to start getting back

[29:59] on the bike ahead of Noosa. Swimming's not an issue, but I want to train easier, and to do that I need to drop about 6 kilos, I reckon. All right, so I'm on that mission at the moment, and the biggest thing for me — so how do you go about that? Oh, it starts and finishes at the fridge, Courtney. Of course. But do you just wing it on your own, do you just cut out, or are you gonna get help, if anyone's got any ideas? Well, there's a guy — let's talk offline, we can talk online.

[30:30] I'm sure there's a lot of people who can probably offer some other options. At the moment I don't want to take any drugs, I don't want to go down that route. No, I don't want to disappear down the ozempic route. Hey, whatever floats your boat, I don't need it, if I show a little bit of self-discipline — this is me and my body, if I show some self-discipline at the fridge, watch the fridge, go out for some runs, do some exercise. Every time I want to reach for something in the fridge, I put my shoes on instead. I'll get there, you'll get there. Well, well, we're not — not that we're offending people,

[31:02] but while we're on, we've had a few topsy-turvy — you'd call this the cancelled episode, yeah, pretty much, we haven't got there yet, we probably will with this — why? We won't. Lindsay Laurie sent me a video on the weekend from down in Bondi and he said, 'you guys, you've done it.' What have we done? Can you take a guess at what — run clubs? On that track, it's actually all

[31:32] about flags, isn't it. No, I'm going to show you a video and I'll put it up on the video on Spotify. If anyone's watching, this is down at Bondi. No, what are you seeing, Liam? I am seeing a solitary runner — oh no, he's out in front. I'm seeing a solitary runner out in front carrying the run club flag like a soldier into battle. Ponies Run Club, shout out the Ponies Run Club, they've done it. Ponies Run

[32:05] Club, Linds was joking because he's like, 'you guys, you started it,' and I'm thinking, I don't think we started his Ponies Run Club flag. In three days, Ponies — what is Ponies? I'm trying to look it up. But the flags are out, Liam, that's the main thing. This Saturday — this was last Saturday, this weekend, Ponies Run Club, this Saturday at 7:00 AM, we bring the Ponies to Bondi. Join us for a 30-minute run, 15 minutes out and back at your own pace. They've got the pirate flag, the

[32:35] black one, I like it. Well done, Ponies. But what is Ponies — 'Australia's most disruptive run and wellness club, powered by' some other mob. I don't like the only thing I don't like about that, Australia's most disruptive run club — don't be a disruptive run club, just be a run club, like what do you have to disrupt? So the flags are out there, so what I want help with is, obviously we may not be the first with this flag thing. Do you want us to make a flag? No, I don't.

[33:05] We should make a flag, do you want to put a flag up behind that? We should, we shouldn't — tell us, would you buy an In The Beginning flag, please? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. However, help us out, let us know if there's any more of this. Then we — is this, how many of these flags are going around? Have we completely missed the boat here and we're late to the party? If you're a run club with a flag, send it in, let us — oh yeah, that gives me another, I wanna start doing a segment called

[33:37] — I haven't come up with a name for it, but basically I wanna review merch from events. OK, like, here's the swag, what do we give it out of 10? You mean the merch you'd buy at the race, or given to you at the end of the race? All of the above. I might do this next week, I've got my hands on quite a bit of the merch from the Gold Coast Marathon, their hat, like last year's, two years ago the hat, the hat from the most recent Gold Coast Marathon, fire.

[34:10] Love it, genuinely a hat that you'd wear just casually, not even running, it's a brilliant hat. Two years ago there was a kind of a yellow and blue one, you'd really only run in that hat. But I want to do this for more races, because — oh, have you seen the ASICS Novablast Sydney Marathon edition shoes? No, are they blue as well? Did someone send that in to us? I don't know if someone sent it in to you yet, but they are — when you talk about good,

[34:41] memorable merch that you'd buy, like if you're lacing up for the Sydney major — hang on, did you say ASICS? Yes. 'Cause they're the sponsor of Sydney as well, they are, yeah, yeah. I was thinking I was going somewhere else, then I was like, they didn't do it for Gold Coast, but they'll do it for Sydney — they're not even a sponsor here. You go, oops. You don't like them? No, no, but I think it's the same

[35:11] colour as this, the same colour as the fellas we're wearing. Oh yeah, but look at what they've done with the bridge on the asset, yeah, and the run seat, I think that's a great shoe, they'll sell a lot of them, they'll sell bucket loads of that shoe. Yep, and again, that's what I want to start doing here, I reckon we can start to review merch for races. They'll sell a lot of them, however, like everything, this — was their shoes specialist shoes before they did the Noosa Tri shoe, 'cause that's the first iconic tri shoe, the Noosa Tri shoe

[35:45] that they did for years — colours, I bought a pair of those, as far as I can remember. Back then they'd been doing this at Noosa again, like everything, they were, I'm assuming, may have been one of the first to market in that space, and that shoe you see walking around in airports and everywhere. But now it's like, do another one, another one, another one — not just them, but any brand, you just jump on the bandwagon. So are you pro the shoes? I'm pro keeping things original.

[36:18] I'm anti — I'm anti going down the route of copying. All right, you're such an old man. No, well, I give props where props are due, and given that they were the ones to do it, it's fair call. But there's nothing worse than seeing someone do something, like a brand do something, and then suddenly it reappears with a little bit of polish on it, or in a different way, and another brand just pops up. Yeah, I don't want to

[36:49] see — but I don't want to see Nike or Adidas try and do a Sydney Marathon shoe. ASICS is the presenting sponsor and I think it's great that they're doing a shoe this year, and honestly I wouldn't even tweak it, like, to your point, that's a great shoe, really strong, embraces the race, ticks all the boxes. Yeah, the harbour things on it, probably no need to bring out a 2027 model. Good, yeah, we can agree, you know what I mean, we don't need to flood the market with limited editions, bring

[37:19] out — have you, do you know what would be impressive? Bring out 500 of them. Do it, do it, and bring out 500 — oh my gosh, OK, OK, and then it's impressive, because can you imagine, here you go, how — yeah, bring out 500. I love this limited edition stuff, right, and you allocate them randomly to runners in your race.

[37:49] It's part of the lottery, it's the lottery element of the Sydney Marathon — that 500 of you who enter this marathon, 500 of you at random will be, as part of your entry, win a pair of the ASICS Novablast Sydney, no shortcuts, no sponsor giveaways — the only way you can get these shoes is to be an entrant into the Sydney Marathon, and that doesn't even guarantee you the shoe, then luck comes into it. And then on the day, imagine running past someone who's running in those shoes. 500 out of how many Sydney Marathon entrants

[38:22] have you got? That's cool, 500, that's how you make it special out of tens of thousands, that's really cool. Likely that becomes special, that does, yeah, yeah, yeah, and again, all these brands, they want to sell as many shoes as possible, but if you sell enough shoes, you can still do cool stuff, exclusive stuff, clever stuff that makes it different, special. I like where we got to there. Yeah, all right, where are we going next? We talked about the flags, didn't we? Yeah, sorry, but seriously, can we make a flag?

[38:52] How did we get from the flag to shoes? Because we started talking about people sending in their flags, and I asked about event merch, and then I started talking about wanting to review event merch that people send in — remind us, Gold Coast Marathon hat, I think it's a banger. Yeah, we want to know more about — more flags, if your run club has a flag, I'm not — even if you've just seen one, but also I think a lot of people who are part of run clubs, make your run

[39:23] club a flag. Did I say last week when we were talking about the flags, Gold Coast Run Co, I actually found an old photo, they don't have a flag — do they have a flag? It was used out the side of a car, I've never seen it being run with though, but it was used for the purpose of cheering. Is cheering-flags better than running-flags? Flag, flag, fly your flag, fly your flag, fly your flag, fly the damn flag.

[39:53] This one is some news around the running that I think is a good one — the event down in Kunanyi, the event that broke you, Kunanyi. They're gonna host the first ever combined Australian Mountain and Trail Running Championships in 2027. So trail's getting a little bit more formalised here in Australia. OK, so

[40:25] it's the combined Australian — I believe these have been run separately in the past, and I love this too. What do you love about it? I love the fact they bring it together. Don't have multiple organisations running multiple championships — get the best and run it. It's what so many sports, and I understand the reasoning behind it, because everyone wants their little share of having their championship, or it's commercially trying to sell

[40:55] something, or if it's an organisation they want to be the ones to own the championship. But the best thing for sports is when you focus on one key thing and bring all the best runners in and crown the champion. Sometimes it's about who gets to crown the champion. I totally agree, and we're agreeing a lot today, it's unusual, isn't it. Totally agree, because I think, as you started talking about that a bit, it's that ego of who gets the credit. And you see this with the Olympic stuff that's going on.

[41:25] I was talking to somebody the other day involved with paddle sports, right, so kayaking and whitewater and all that sort of stuff — you're not going to say anything in confidence here, no, no, no, but I was asking some hypotheticals, you know how I love nothing more than discussing the 2032 Olympic Games, it's my favourite thing, and with all the stuff, the plan to build this new whitewater rafting place up at Redlands, and the idea of Rockhampton hosting the rowing

[41:56] and all that sort of stuff, and then Tom Tate being Tom Tate and saying bring it all down here, we'll host it all — I was asking somebody how could any of this work, and it seemed to me like one of the, not the underlying problem, but an issue with it might be that you've got different governing bodies involved with these different sports, and it would require a certain level of investment from the different governing bodies for this to happen. But if one governing body got to

[42:27] be the host, and the other governing bodies were having to chip in for it, that might be a stumbling block. Explain to me which governing body — I don't want to go into detail, but essentially different hierarchies of governing bodies. Yes, exactly, and who hosts, and who pays, and all that sort of stuff. And at the end of the day, when you talk about trail and mountain coming together for this event — well, you know, not the big stuff, but some of the little stuff could be solved if

[42:58] people just followed their egos less on stuff. Well, especially when it comes to smaller sports, more niche sports can't afford to be egotistical. Well, they also can't be separated, they've got to come together to drive their sport. It's great having everyone independently trying to help, sure, but the collective of getting together as one is going to always outweigh everyone trying to do their own thing.

[43:28] So yeah, anyway, there you go. All right, so would that get you back down there? Yeah, you'll get a bit — oh, probably not in a hurry, you're pretty broke. No, no, no, pretty broke — my return to running at the moment, I'm allowed to run three days a week, non-consecutive days, I'm not allowed to run uphills or efforts. OK, so no efforts, no uphills. Pete, when we were down there in Tassie, remember we had Pete and we were chatting about, you know, how Salomon got behind him and all that.

[43:58] Well, Pete at the moment — I mean, following him, he's riding through, he's literally on a bike with everything he's got, in Europe, and I think he's spending three to six months just riding through Europe. What a trip, worth it, worth it, he would've — I don't know how long he's gonna keep it on the socials, I messaged him the other day and said, 'that's great, keep them coming, I love to see where you are,' and he said, 'this social media stuff's hard work, mate.' Now I know what athletes go through for us, yeah. Let's get into some — we've had plenty of people chiming in,

[44:28] plenty of people chiming in — I'll throw the image up too, Gnomesy, called my personal security guard from Seba Super, she come down to protect you at the Gold Coast Marathon, she did, she travels with me everywhere. You got personal security, Liam? No, Gnomesy was there, well, not as part of, but for anybody that was down there or was around the Gold Coast Marathon, you might have seen there was a fellow that ran the marathon blind.

[44:58] Now I'm pretty sure his name was Mick, and I apologise if I'm not getting that right, but Gnomesy came up to find me on the sideline and said 'he's coming in soon, can you give him a bit of a shout out.' And of course, if you run a marathon you deserve a shout out and a high five on the red carpet. If you run one blind, with assistance runners, you're getting a shout out. And it was incredible, it was really cool, and the guys that ran it with him, as I said at the time on the microphone, he can't see any of you, but he can hear all of you. And when he hit the blue carpet, the Gold Coast grandstand did

[45:30] their thing, made it a really cool moment. I'll tell you what, you got a lot more accolades for your cheering than I did for running. We know who your favourite is around here. Yeah, like we won't mention everyone today, but all of the — we love the high fives, we heard Liam was great to come over, didn't shut up at all. Those things, no, I didn't shut up, I should have shut up at some point. And one of them, Liam and

[46:02] Courtney, congrats — who wrote this, Belle Ryan? 'Liam, Courtney, congrats both on a successful weekend' — yeah, we both did have a successful weekend, you've been such an integral part of my running over the last few years. It was so great to see Courtney run by and give Liam a high five on the finish line. I thought you just tackled me, mate. She got a 15-minute PB, so congratulations, she's on the 4:30 bus. And Penny, shout out to Penny the pacer, she was on the money for the 4:30 bus.

[46:33] That's so cool, it's really cool. Now, as much as there were other people shouting us out, Courtney, I think the biggest, most significant message we got off the back of the Gold Coast Marathon came from our friends at Official Unofficial, who have ratified your result. They gave me the big thumbs up. There's — I have

[47:03] been checking into the influencers, I have been pissing myself at what they've been doing, this is for those not aware, this is the social media account that goes along and basically keeps all the influencers and running accounts in check. They've called out a couple — they've called out heaps, and it's been so funny, and I think there was one, and I'm not going to get the details exactly right, but essentially they called out one — somebody ran a 3:10 official time, OK, and they put it out there as a

[47:34] 3:04 on their socials. And this mob said, they're like, you know, they called them out, 'your time's wrong, you've gone off your Strava rather than your official chip time,' and whatever, which is so disappointing, because 3:10 is an amazing first marathon. Cracker, but it's this need for people to chase those extra minutes and the pressures of social media. Well, I mean it is easy, I don't condone it at all, but you finish,

[48:04] everyone uploads to Strava, the first thing you want to post is Strava, so what was your Strava time? Well, that's what I just opened up — this is because this is the first time I've got to experience it. OK, so we've talked about it, we see, Unofficial, what is it? Let me get there, I'm pretty sure it's Official Unofficial, yeah, and I stopped my — I started pretty much, well, obviously started my watch on the line, finished it when — Official, Unofficial time, yeah, official marathon time, Integrity

[48:34] Unit, yeah, great, I'm glad I didn't get called out. So, 42.5K — oh, so you ran further? I ran 40 on the line, so I stopped my watch correctly at the right time, so it should've — my watch should've — oh, so I stopped my watch at 2:42:11, which was your official time? And I think it was 2:42:10 as an official time, well done.

[49:04] Well done. So if I posted my Strava time, effectively it's within one second of the correct time. The problem is the distance. Oh, because it says you ran further. It says — and this is where everyone gets themselves in trouble — so they go, what? Hold on, but a lot of what they call out is people doing that, and then either going back and cropping their distance back to 42.2. So within that Strava right now,

[49:34] and I don't know if you can, but can you look up within that activity, it should give you records and such, it should have segments or records. Now what does it say for your marathon? 2:40:54. That's where people get into trouble, and so, had you posted that, if you're like an average person, you would have gone with a 2:40:54 marathon. Yeah, but this is where it comes down to being just a crock of it, right, because you're sitting here looking at

[50:04] this, right, and you're going, I know, I started my watch, and I stopped it on the finish line, my time is 2:42:11, like, regardless of the official time, that's how far — for anyone then to go, 'well, my fastest marathon time was 2:40:54,' I mean, I've literally been told by people, you always take the faster time. Oh my gosh, I would have — oh my gosh, I would have loved it, my first experience with what

[50:35] — but I said this in the wrap up, the learning of that for me was, it's not right, don't trust Strava number one in that situation. But two, I got caught out a little bit in that first 20K because I was trusting Strava, and when I was looking at my average splits per K, or whatever the pace was I was running, I thought I was ahead of pace and the reality was I wasn't. So you can get yourself in trouble both ways, but yeah, so there you go. That's funny, that's funny.

[51:05] I like it, I'm glad, thank you fellas — or girls, we don't know, we still don't know who's behind that. I still reckon they're local enough. All right, they're too — what would you say, not friendly is the wrong word, but they're too in the know, yeah, connected, it's, you know, you got the spider web of, what is it, six degrees of separation. They're too close to too many

[51:37] things for them not to be. So you think they're here on the GC? I don't know if they're here on the GC, but they're within a close enough scene that they know that, if anybody knows, that's just where to start. Hey, quickly, I was talking to — who was I talking to the other day, I can't remember, this is going to annoy me — I was talking to someone the other day, and I don't know if you said this in our wrap up episode, but for people that have been following along, you were going to challenge

[52:07] — originally you meant to challenge him in the 10K T100 race, correct, and I got injured and was out, and then you were meant to race him in the marathon. Yes, I'm talking about Tim Rigby. Yeah, we didn't follow up. Well, I didn't want to — is it, someone told me he withdrew at like 40K's, at 30K's, had some — 30K's had some end, he was on for a cracker too. He was a long way ahead of me, so I'd given up, I'd given up actually racing him. Well, I did say before it, the only way I'm going to beat him is if he doesn't finish.

[52:38] I might have put the mockers on him, because what happened, he was running at 2:30, screw, that's what I heard, and had some quad trouble at about 30K, so I mean, I won, I'll tell you, I wasn't going to say this story, but obviously his brother, who we know, was — yes, and I was waiting at the finish line and I did make him present my medal to him.

[53:10] No, yeah, you made Tim present your medal, that's great. Do you know what, mate, racing's the best, mate, better that we talk about it all the time, for a benchmark, your runs, find a rivalry, find your race within the race, and often that's racing your mates. So it was a bit of a non-race in the end, to be honest, he was well ahead of me and then had some trouble. But I know, but it's the runs on the board, leader. Yeah, exactly, it's one nil.

[53:40] It's one nil. Courtney, I know that you don't like it when I try and claim things on behalf of the podcast, but I'm going to try to now. Can we claim that as an In The Beginning bet, the presenting punishment? What do you mean? Well, what Tim had to do for you at the end of the race, present you with the medal, as in put the medal around your neck, I'm assuming — I think that should, because I think that was my finisher's participation award.

[54:11] It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. No, I think there should be, that needs to become an In The Beginning tradition — if anybody out there listening challenges a friend to a race, OK, yes, moving forward, we want to see an image. When you make the agreement with your friend to race them, I think you should say to them, 'and of course, In The Beginning rules apply,' and when they say, 'well, what does that mean,' you say, 'winner or loser presents the winner with their medal in a formal

[54:41] ceremony — In The Beginning rules apply.' Any mate-versus-mate race, In The Beginning rules apply. I love that, I'm gonna make it with your mates. I'm gonna make that with someone for Noosa this year, yeah, In The Beginning rules. That was kind of on the spot, just being a prick, but no, it's good, because it adds it adds juice in a non-monetary way to a mate's bet, it is good. Like I said, all of the lead-up to it was the fun part, and there's a rematch now, I don't know where the rematch is gonna happen. Yeah.

[55:11] Now can I just pull the thread here, since you've mentioned your marathon and hinted that maybe you'd already started looking abroad, and some people have been sending in on the Insta messages — yeah, I forgot Queenstown is on in November, so it's a November date I'm looking at, give or take, and that's got to do with the timing, right. November, no, nothing I want to announce, nothing out there at the moment. So not Queenstown, not Queenstown, not — what were the three?

[55:42] Someone had a good crack, yeah, yeah, someone had a good crack and I forgot about Queenstown, Queenstown could be a good one — I'll let you have a look, and I'll read another one of our — you filled time, Tristan, let us know — you know, we're going on about the Russian backyard stuff, yes, yes, yes, yes, that could go a few ways, the Russian backyard ultra that was on, and they broke all the world records, now nullified. Oh, why,

[56:13] what happened? There were pacers involved, which obviously aren't allowed. I know — so that doesn't count? Doesn't count, apparently, according to Facebook, don't know how much credibility you give it, but yeah, sounds like a no-go. So let us know, anyone out there in that world, if that's true. Be Rad Dad, quick update, 'cause we're talking about him leading up to the race, yeah, he was looking for you at the finish line, what was he doing?

[56:44] I was looking out for Liam at the finish line, trying to help, I think, a person named Les who'd stopped 25 metres from the finish line, so he's trying to get someone across there to finish in time. But an hour PB, well, Be Rad — oh no, you Be Rad, we mentioned last week, really, about his PB, I think — oh geez, I tell you what, I annoyed some people, I've just jumped out of our Instagram messages and jumped

[57:15] into our Spotify mentions. Jack O'Brien was the one pitching your possible marathons, he said New Zealand, Auckland, or Queenstown — well, the three he flagged, New Zealand, Auckland, or Queenstown, sorry, New York, or Auckland, or Queenstown — New York, Auckland, or — great races, none of them I'd thought about, OK, put them in the mix, all right. Here's one I wanted to touch on, because remember last week we were talking about marathon finishes and you got real shirty with me about

[57:47] what I did — about the fact that the MCG might have had a better finish to it than the Sydney Marathon. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Maddie jumped in and left a message saying, 'don't even suggest the MCG is a better finish than Sydney, lol, I returned home and ran it last year, had tears in my eyes, how beautiful, and what it meant to cross that line, outstanding work on the JC lads, Courtney was definitely flying past me at the Surfers Paradise sign, and Leigh McContry was inspirational, I hit the wall at 63K and absolutely bonked at the 31 kilometre mark.' Oh good, good going, attempting

[58:19] it though, we talked a little bit about — so she's backing me, that Sydney's a greater finish than the MCG. This wasn't even a discussion? Even people were talking about a lot, a lot of people came on to talk about that concept of the capture-the-flag, OS-tag type events. A lot of people were saying, well, this is basically what the Hakone Ekiden Japanese marathon is. But I think what I'm working on — I'm still working, playing around with it, because it's less about, yes, I understand that the

[58:49] Ekiden relay in Japanese tradition is about running with your sash. What I'm trying to figure out is, is there a concept, a world that's more capture-the-flag-type, OS-tag, where you literally take the tags from other runners as you run past. But the difficulty is trying to create a concept which doesn't just reward the straight-out best runner. Like, if Stewart McSweyn turns up and Micks Wayne turns up and runs on behalf of a run club, it's like, sweet, that's not fun, because he's just going to run

[59:22] past everyone, take all their tags. Trying to develop that concept, I'm still working on it, still throwing some stuff — what if your team leader runs with a flag, yes, yeah, there's something there, could be something in trail, like the capture-the-flag element, if you're in the bush on the trail, I mean, you just used to tackle each other, so it's not really running, but if you did it over a longer distance, well, you know what the world doesn't need at the moment? More running events. More running events. Do you know the thing I would say though, because I was

[59:52] thinking about this the other day as I was working on this concept of capture-the-flag running flags and all the rest of it, and then looking at, because the other thing I saw around the World Cup was this, and it's a massive thing on the internet and YouTube golf right now, is the YouTube Golf League. And the World Cup just recently held an event which was a bunch of the creators, it was the Creator League or the Creator Cup. You did this first, what's that? Your race, Race the Sun, is to some extent the

[01:00:25] Creators' race — you get a lot of elites, really great runners, yeah, but you get a lot more brands coming now in the running space, that is what they are, the creators, right, the brands are the creators. I was wondering, could you create a creator, like an influencer or content creator running event? I'm like, Courtney's done it, you've done it, Race the Sun, Chase the Sun, Beat the Race, Race the Sun, he's here. Yeah, fine, you've done it four years. Could I come in on a

[01:00:57] non-paid basis, non-paid basis, next year, would you be prepared to allow me to sit in on some of your meetings? Sure, because I think that with all — I can throw some stuff that might add some investment as well. Oh, no, no, no, no, I want no financial investment, no financial liability, I want no financial reward, I just want to be able to throw things and see what sticks. Yeah, OK, all right, we'll allow you to do that, get a real

[01:01:34] sense of how I work, yeah. No, I'm actually just thinking, in some meetings, not to do with that event, but just some meetings where it's like some of the ideas we go, yeah, you could do that. Yeah, look, they're my favourite ideas, and I know I do this, but we're doing this — because radio would be very similar to this. We're doing this for the purposes of entertainment, right, but when I sit down in meetings to actually do things for our radio show and someone goes, 'oh, you know what, if we did this,' and my brain goes, think about that for just a

[01:02:05] second, about how hard and logistically intense that will be to try and organise. There's four of us. Yeah, but sure, I mean, if Nike feels like investing their entire marketing budget, we could definitely make that happen. With money, you can do anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had that, I actually had a funny — I can share this, it's not revealing any trade secrets, I was asking our tech guru Gareth, brilliant fella —

[01:02:36] basically, if the studio breaks, he fixes it for me, like if you spill coffee through the desk, like I did that one time, and I said to Gareth, 'hey mate, we've got some studio potential relocation stuff going on,' and I said, 'what's the timeline on getting into the other studios?' 'It's not a timeline issue,' I said, 'well, can we go on, guys?' 'Yeah, it's a money issue.' I was like, 'what do you mean?' And he basically rattled off — I literally, in my simpleton head, thought it was a matter of me taking my headphones and my

[01:03:06] mic sock and walking into the other studio, that to me was the studio change. Gareth listed off the things that were required for us to move from that studio to that studio, and the dollar figure attached, so I'm guessing not happening. I'm getting real comfy in my current studio, because it ain't happening anytime soon. You'll be on the tools yourself doing your own reno, this — I want to learn how to lay a reno, yeah, it's not happening anytime soon. Do you still have that brick, the fake brick vinyl wallpaper you've

[01:03:38] got, the fake brick vinyl wallpaper you need to get — you need to get, you know what, you're always throwing ideas, here we go, this is a good — here's an idea I want to throw, I'm ready. You've got a captive audience driving to work every morning, the tradies and everything, there's got to be someone on the Gold Coast, a tradie who loves your show, big old-school music fan, Triple M listener, who can come and rip that bloody wallpaper off and put up new vinyl, some even just some vinyl, like you know, some of the wood-look stuff they put on, laminate

[01:04:09] stuff — laminate, anything, they don't even have to rip the wallpaper off, just get someone to donate — anyone out there, even on the podcast, if anyone wants to donate some, if you're a builder, if you're a chippy and you want to donate some laminate to Liam's studio, I appreciate what you're offering, Courtney, we are an organisation that shouldn't require donations from our listeners. It's meant to go the other way — you're meant to give prizes to the audience, right, I know, but it's not meant to go to the wall, Liam, I know that's not the reason we're here, with a white wall, because I couldn't handle your vinyl

[01:04:40] brick, it's a white wall behind us for now, but I'll tell you what, Courtney, when I get this In The Beginning studio, you're gonna have a flag, running flag made up. I can tell you right now there's gonna be no flag — hey, back on, I'm making a flag. Spotify comments, JB around, we're talking about elite distance running in Australia, is a more extreme example of soccer's problem — huge participation, yes, but this isn't translating into broader recognition of the elites. 100%, yep, totally agree, more JB.

[01:05:10] Totally agree, JB. We've already talked about the Chinese shoe converts. What else have we got here, Chris? Thanks, I just got spammed with — no, I'm getting a bit sick of this, well, it's done now, Chris, let's move on. Scottish, Chrissie Wellington, Scottish, thank you, Liam, yes, he did a great job, although on the commentary, and you, yes, we've heard — you know, will I do it this week? No, I'll do it next week. What are you doing next week? I got — if you're

[01:05:40] sick of it, get ready, because Courtney, well, he's coming to another race very soon. What, the GC Titans? No, my voice. All right, I'm locked in. Can I have a guess? I will neither confirm nor deny, so I can have a guess if you — you can't release it if you've signed a contract. Not yet. Oh so, you don't want me to guess yet. Don't guess. Yeah, next week we'll reveal — we'll do a race

[01:06:12] reveal. Because, yeah, I am, from pen to paper, getting involved with another race. It's exciting. So Gold Coast Marathon, if you want to sign me up, it's an exclusive deal, it's getting poached. Yeah, I'm getting poached. No, it's going to be fun. Big one, subscribe, subscribe. I keep getting spammed, and talking about spam, I keep getting spammed by Spotify saying — what are they saying? — that we've got more listeners than we've got subscribers, and I need to do something about

[01:06:44] it. So Spotify is saying that, for the amount of listeners we get, we don't have enough subscribers, correct. So you're all listening, just press the subscribe button. If not for yourself, for Courtney's inbox, do it, subscribe. We'll see you next week.