EP 10 - SHITTING YOUR PANTS

[00:00] In the beginning, episode ten — Courtney, they said we'd never make it to double figures, but here we are, ten episodes down. How are you? I'm good, yeah — ten, I mean, it's still early days, isn't it? So what's been going on? Let's talk about Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul — fifty-eight versus twenty-seven, I think that was the age gap. This hurt me. Why? Oh, it's just, you know, Father Time does catch up, doesn't it — undefeated. It does, and I really thought if anyone could beat it, a crazy cat like him could.

[00:34] But no — which, you know, as we slowly, slowly tick towards those ages, I'm like, better make the most of it right now. That's a great takeaway from the Mike Tyson–Jake Paul fight. It's entertainment. There's better entertainment out there, there's worse entertainment out there — this one worked because of the characters involved. It captured the imagination. I think it was sixty million people around the world watching on Netflix. It's the perfect storm of entertainment, culture and influence

[01:07] combined with streaming and all that sort of stuff — of course it's going to get this huge. Everything about it was a perfect storm. I do like the way it encapsulated the older audience, the ones who remember Tyson in his day, right through to us, who probably only watched him near the end of his career. And then you had my son down the road with young mates who are ten, twelve years old, watching it because of Jake Paul, who started out as a Disney kid. So love him or hate him,

[01:38] the fact of the matter is he's brought in an audience of every age. It's on Netflix, it stopped the nation — or stopped the world. Very disappointing in the end, though. The women's fight was amazing — the co-main event was proper, serious boxing. I know the young boys loved the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders at the beginning, but that's a highlight, that's noise, right? It's what we talk about a bit on this show around influencing in the running space. Jake Paul is the definition of

[02:08] someone who creates noise, and as a result he gets to step into the ring with one of the most famous boxers of all time, even though Tyson's at least twenty years past his prime. It was an entertainment event — it was entertaining. If I'm honest, the spectacle of it was gone for me after the first two rounds. I think it was eight two-minute rounds. After the first couple, once you could see Mike wasn't going to be throwing anything, it

[02:39] became hard to watch. It was disappointing, mate — disappointing but, to your point about age, about Father Time being undefeated, his legs were gone. That's the thing I noticed. And for people who might not know, road running is a huge part of a boxer's training — because they need their legs as much as their arms and their fists. The arms do the damage, but the legs are so important in that sport, and he just didn't have any legs.

[03:09] He didn't have any legs whatsoever, compared with Jake Paul, who's got power and he's twenty-seven, he's of age. But compare that to the weekend — I love watching UFC, and UFC 309 was on the Sunday, and you're talking about an event with the best fighters in the world. Forget the influencers, this is real — Jon Jones came back. This was a crazy fight. You see Trump walk in and it's a whole different atmosphere,

[03:40] a completely different vibe. It's a pinnacle, but what I love about the way they've done it is because they're all under contract to the one organisation, the best fight the best — there's no hiding, they get the best fights, week in, week out. And the key, just like running, is consistency. You just know every Sunday you can lie in bed and watch UFC. It's at a really interesting point right now, because I felt like off the back of Conor McGregor, it dipped in popularity ever so

[04:12] slightly — dipped with the casual fan, the die-hard fans were still there, but the casual follower dropped off after Conor McGregor, and I think it's coming back up again now with the casual fan. What's interesting about both of them, the Netflix special and UFC, is there's this idea out there that boxing audiences, mixed martial arts audiences, are just

[04:43] your rednecks, your bogans — but that's not true, it's so not true. Female, male, every type is watching. There's obviously a certain type drawn to that kind of combat sport, but everyone's watching this now. With Netflix backing this style of event and UFC going from strength to strength, I think this space is only going to grow. The other take I had on the Mike

[05:13] Tyson–Jake Paul thing was that with the Tom Brady roast earlier this year and now this, I think Netflix is starting to show their hand, their intent — it's probably been clear for a while, but they're really showing they're moving into live sport. And if you're a fan of sport, this is great, but you better get used to it — at some point your favourite sport might mean you need Netflix to watch it.

[05:46] Would that many people not have Netflix, though? I don't know what the numbers suggest, but that could be a wild statement. Live sport is probably the last bastion for them to explore, and if you look locally — if the AFL or the NRL — Netflix comes knocking with a cheque, it'll dwarf what the free-to-air broadcasters are capable of offering, and probably the pay TV broadcasters too.

[06:17] So that's the new frontier. And I wonder — to bring it back to the core of this podcast — whether some running events could get ahead of it, rather than waiting for Netflix to knock, and call them right now and say, hey, do you want to get involved and keep honing your craft around live sport, using the Sydney Marathon, the new triathlon events? I don't know — Stan, Amazon Prime, they're all already great backers of

[06:50] Australian sport. So watch this space with Netflix — I saw they're doing a Christmas special, a Gridiron game live on Christmas Day. So imagine that: while all the Aussies sit around and watch the Boxing Day Test, over in the States on Christmas Day it's Netflix with the biggest game. Interesting stuff. I went down to Tugun on Saturday, where the qualifying series for the Shaun Partners Ironman Series was

[07:22] happening — the old-school Uncle Toby's-style Australian series. Is that still on TV? It was streaming on YouTube, actually, and I thought the broadcast quality was really good — Courtney Hancock and your mate Ty Dalka doing the commentary. But I wonder, do they even broadcast those events live anymore, or is it on delay? I think it's been hit and miss for a lot of years — probably going back to,

[07:54] I reckon around 2008, give or take, maybe even earlier — 2005 was really the turning point for that kind of endurance sport being live on TV, whether that was triathlon, the Uncle Toby's Super Series, or some of the marathons — City to Surf still gets a live run, but that's more participation-based. But those real elite events — 2005 was really the end of it on TV.

[08:25] Speaking of, we'll get to our weeks on the track shortly, but speaking of live endurance events — have you ever shit yourself running, Courtney? Mate, you know how to take a turn on this. Have you ever, in your professional racing career, got caught short mid-race? No — I can't go as far as saying I've never

[08:55] shit myself, but I've never shit myself in a race. Have a listen to this though. "...as hard as she could, and she went on..." — we're not taking the piss here, by any means, we know you don't want this to happen to anyone. That's American Taylor Knibb, mid-race. Did she win?

[09:26] I don't know if she went on to win — this is a triathlon, the T100, I'm assuming it was in Dubai. I think Ash Gentle came second or third — she's Australia's. The T100 sits somewhere between an Ironman and the ITU-style World Series, which is Olympic-distance racing, and they've brought something together over one hundred kilometres, and hopefully the best in the world race it. So that's Taylor Knibb — I think she's medalled at the Olympics twice, she's a star, one of the best in the game, and that

[09:57] clip is her on the run, saying to the cameraman, "Cameraman, I've just shit myself, can you please not film my ass?" And he says yep, and she says thank you — about as polite a conversation as you'd ever hear for such an inappropriate topic. And here's the thing — she did go on to win. She won it. I've just scrolled down to a photo taken of her at the finish line, and obviously

[10:27] whoever was taking photos at the finish line didn't get the memo. But here's the thing — I reckon every amateur runner out there, and probably every professional too, feels Taylor's pain. I feel that pain every morning I get up to go running. Mid-run, if you're out on the trails, it's a real problem. It's a big problem, especially for morning runners.

[10:58] It's one of the key concerns — how you get around it, and it dictates our location, where we start, what the standard of the toilets is. Where you start a run is key, because you can have toilets, but there's toilets and then there's toilets. Gold Coast City Council are doing a great job up the northern end of the Gold Coast — some of the southern end, down your way, are a little bit sloppy. Not happy with the standard? Not happy with the standard, that's why I stay north.

[11:30] So for all you runners out there, you need to know where your toilets are — you need to know where your good toilets are. At the Noosa Triathlon, as an example — I know we said we wouldn't talk about this — the Portaloo situation up there, they do their best, but I've also got a sixth sense for finding a customers-only toilet behind a locked gate. I found one up

[12:00] in Noosa this year that proved an absolute lifesaver, because the pre-race nerves get you too, and before you know it you're going more than you need to. Do you have any tricks for people out there on this topic, Court? Nothing beats — I don't think anything beats a coffee. Get some caffeine into you, give it a bit of time, and then wait. So you're just going to wake up a bit earlier — that's a trick, you've got to cater it into the morning routine, the pre-run routine. But the group run, when you're meeting a group, that's the real

[12:32] hard one. You need another five or ten minutes, and what are you supposed to do? They're off running while you're stuck. "Can you wait for me?" Depends how big the group is — anyway, the running problems. I had one up at Main Beach recently, same situation — the run group's starting in four minutes and there's a bloke in there cleaning the toilets, and I said, mate, can I jump in there? And he goes, I'm just cleaning it,

[13:03] and I said, I know, but I've got about three minutes of my best work here and four minutes until I need to be running — how long till you're done? Sixty seconds, he says, he's got a job to do and I've got to respect that. But back to Taylor Knibb — to perform like she did and go on to win the race, tip of the cap; to complete the run in the state she was in, another tip of the cap; but to have the composure to talk to that cameraman with

[13:34] such frankness but politeness too — it was a really pleasant conversation about please not filming the bottom half, because she'd shit herself. Paula Radcliffe was the famous one, at the London Marathon, mid-race. It happens, and the ones who are tough just deal with it and keep going, I suppose. Let's hope it's not one of us — it's an occupational hazard. Footballers don't know how good

[14:05] they've got it — you've never seen a footballer have to deal with that. No, because they just sub themselves off, disappear into the sheds and come back clean. So what's been happening with you? I haven't shit myself this week, mate. I'm actually feeling really good running-wise — my kilometres are starting to climb back up. Last week I did forty-five, just ticked over forty-five, so that curve's climbing again. I've been sticking with

[14:35] the slower, longer runs, but there was an event I raced, Courtney — you raced, and I know you'll want to hear about this. I do want to hear about this. I raced last Friday — I didn't know it was on, but I saw it on Instagram, and I thought, that's one of those — we talked about the CUT event on the Gold Coast a while back, and this is another event I was keen to get involved with. I ended up in Sydney again, of all places — we'll talk about your week in a sec — but we've got to give a shout-out to Steve Jackson, the man behind both The CUT and this

[15:05] event, Trail Trips and Events. I think he also runs the Coastal High 50, which I'd argue is one of the best trail races in Australia for scenery — the guy knows how to run a race. I got a message from one of the blokes in my run group saying, hey, can you make Broadwater Parklands this Friday, there's a 5K relay event on. I said sure, no worries. I got there, the race had already started — I was coming from work, but I said I'll just be the last runner, it's fine. Essentially it's a four-

[15:35] by-five-kilometre relay — teams of four, all different categories, open mixed, male, female, juniors, whatever. It's a 5K relay, really. Interesting course, running on pavement and on dirt for sections too — and this is where the Gold Coast Marathon finishes, right? If you've run the Gold Coast Marathon, you'll know you finish up around Broadwater Parklands. What I loved about it, my big takeaway, was that running is for

[16:09] everybody. It was a great advertisement for where running's at, because you had elite blokes, elite teams, men and women dropping sixteen-minute 5K efforts — I think the quickest was under sixteen minutes — proper runners at this thing. And then you had people plodding around at thirty-five minutes. Because it was a single course, two loops, two-and-a-half K each,

[16:39] you did two loops of it, but everyone's rolling through, so it's not like V8 Supercars where everyone's always on the same lap — you'd have a seven-minute-per-K runner getting passed by someone flying past on a sub-four-minute K. And you ran through the crowd — I saw a bit of a crowd, there was a finish point at the Aquatic Centre, so a bit of a corridor and an atmosphere. And because it's a loop, the

[17:09] far points of the course weren't exactly packed, but you always had points to run to, and there was a crowd, support, enthusiasm, music — it was just a really great vibe. I went out and committed to the five K, I think I just tipped under twenty — I did about a nineteen-fifty. How's that compare to your best time? Off, about a minute off my best time. What's your best 5K? I think I've gone under nineteen once,

[17:40] and that was in — wait, was that in a triathlon where they measure it a bit short? Look at me pretending I don't remember exactly what it was — that's what I do. So, that ASICS World Ekiden Relay Challenge, remember that? You might have been involved with it through your ASICS relationship — it was basically a similar sort of thing, you ran it as a relay but could run your segment whenever. I had a pair of MetaSpeeds

[18:12] I'd never used before — this was virtual, you could just run out and go. There were legs of about two-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half K, and you could run yours any time of day and record your relay time whenever. You could jump on a bike, or a car probably, but I remember going into Centennial Park in Sydney and finding a 5K loop that was mostly flat, if not a little downhill for most of it, and I went under

[18:44] nineteen minutes that time — did about eighteen-fifty-two. So this time, for last Friday's race, I did just under twenty minutes, which I was happy with — mad headwind. You started your first K with a tailwind, so everyone went out too fast, and then when you turned and tried to run back, you were straight into that headwind. But great event, unbelievable atmosphere, and you always felt like you were either chasing someone or being chased

[19:15] because of the nature of the setup. I couldn't recommend it enough — the ASICS World Ekiden Relay is what it's called. You know how much I love the idea of community relay events, making running more than just an individual pursuit — I've watched Steve put this on for a few years and I absolutely love it. It's great — we should put together a team next time one of these is on. I was thinking about it afterwards, it's a great way — we have so

[19:47] many mates you'd challenge like this — golf's an easy thing to challenge someone to, tennis, all that sort of stuff. This would be such an easy way to go, hey, my four versus your four, let's go — put some bragging rights on the line. Great atmosphere, and over the course of an hour and a half you're just keeping tabs on where your mates are travelling, the times, great atmosphere.

[20:18] Okay, so next year we need a bit more notice — not the week after. Not the week after, no good to you this year, but yeah, so I did that, and I've just been ticking along. I had another run in the Salomon Spectres and enjoyed them a bit more the second time. When I want to crack that forty-minute 10K, when I'm ready to have a crack, I think those are the shoes I'll wear. What did you wear in

[20:49] the 5K relay? The Adidas Bostons — can't get me out of the Bostons, I really like them. Oh, I didn't tell you this — here's one for new runners out there. You can talk about gear, nutrition, training, strength work, prep — but the most simple, fundamental thing you should do before every run is double-check that your

[21:22] laces are tied. I started my leg of the relay within twenty metres of them coming undone, and I ran the whole thing with them like that — very amateur, I was so disappointed in myself. I thought you were going to say go to the toilet. First things first — no, I didn't shit myself. How's your week going? It's been good — in full transparency, it was the first week I've had a bit of soreness, back around my

[21:55] calf. Yeah, my pace has been climbing — pretty much an eighty, ninety, ninety kilometre week. I didn't run on Sunday, took a day off, and the last two days I've been back running, it's been fine. I think it was just that I got through a fair bit — last Thursday I did a threshold session down with the Gold Coast Run Co mob around Pizzey Park, and the week before we'd run at around twenty-eight-minute pace,

[22:26] tempo threshold. At the moment I'm trying to hold my heart rate around one-fifty-three to stay consistent and track whether I'm improving. The week before I was struggling to hold three-twenty pace at that heart rate; this week we did a twenty-minute solid effort in one hit and held three-twenties around one-fifty. So the fitness is improving — definitely improving. But then Saturday I ran a hilly fartlek-style loop out in the forest,

[22:58] seventeen K, and I pulled up a little sore — okay, I've done four weeks of solid work, let's make sure we recover the next few weeks. I'm travelling a bit for work and a few other things, so it'll be a bit hit and miss, probably a good period to rest a little, but definitely getting some improvements. On that four-week block you mentioned — there's probably people at an amateur level of running, or looking to improve,

[23:28] who'd want to know: does that idea of building for four weeks, increasing kilometres, then having a lighter week, actually work for you? It's probably a good rule of thumb, and a good thing to plan if you had a coach — I'm sure a decent coach would build that in. I hadn't planned it, I was just going by feel and working my way through it, but in hindsight it worked out that way — I probably needed

[23:59] a bit of downtime, and this week will be a bit of that. This morning I ran a fartlek, more of a speed session, and I was fine — happy with how things are going, but I also consciously backed off a little, knowing I won't run tomorrow because of an early morning flight down to Sydney, which I'm not too happy about. What I did do today was run in the Adidas Terrex —

[24:30] they're called the Agravic now, I can't even pronounce it. I don't know why shoe companies make their names so complicated — if I were a shoe company and I wanted to sell a shoe, I'd give it the simplest name people would remember. And you'd want to wear it. Exactly. I've got it written down here, can you read it? Terrex Agravic Speed Ultra. Is it 'Agravic'? Agravic — no, it's not quite that either.

[25:02] It's the Speed Ultra. Every company does this — makes their shoe names so complicated to remember. I love the idea of a consistent shoe name that stays simple, then just version one, two, three, four, five, six, so you know exactly what it is and what it's for. Can I give you an example of a brand that does that well? Air Jordans — Jordan ones, Jordan twos, Jordan threes, Jordan fours.

[25:33] Air Force ones too. Nike do it pretty well with their running shoes as well — you've got your Vomeros, your Pegasus, your Invincible, up to about number three I think. I'm sure other brands do it too — Salomon are on version two of a lot of their shoes at the moment. I agree with you, though — branding is meant to be memorable, easy to recall, and the Adidas Terrex

[26:05] Agravic Speed Ultra is not an easy shoe name to remember. It isn't. If I went to my shoe rack right now — there's twelve pairs sitting there I cycle through — and you asked me the three pairs I'm wearing at the moment, even in my Salomon range, which I know really well, I'd get mixed up. Is it the Ultra Glide Max, is it the Ultra Glide, have they changed the name? It's a challenge. Anyway, we've spent too much time on this — how'd you go with these? My mate Brett from Sydney gave them to me,

[26:39] and I didn't want to put too many K's on them, so I thought the Spit would be a perfect place to trial them — it's trail, kind of clay and cinder, a bit hilly but not technical. I didn't want to knock my ankle either, since they're fairly built-up shoes with a lot of rubber. They were good, but not amazing — and that's probably not a nice way to put it. I was expecting amazing, because everyone's talking about plated

[27:09] shoes, and this is their plated trail speed shoe. Just to walk it through — and by no means is this an ad, but I like trialling other brands' shoes because I can go back to my Salomons and compare. I do have trail shoes with a plate in some of my Salomon range; the ones I'm running in at the moment don't, because we've talked a lot about how I like the contact feel of the ground and, depending on

[27:41] the run, I'm not always looking for a plate. But I love having the comparison — now I know what some of the other brands are doing and what they feel like. This was their speed shoe, and it's got a really aggressive rocker — a bit of a concave shape front to back, and you do feel that when you're running in it. It feels like a road shoe with a bit of light trail grip. But to cut the whole conversation short, it was great running up there

[28:13] in it — comfortable, harder than the soft-rubber shoes out there. But I won't take it onto technical trail — twice this morning I rolled slightly over my ankle in it. For people less experienced at running, the easiest way I explain the benefit of a carbon plate, if you don't

[28:43] understand what we mean when we talk about a plate — think about a kangaroo. When you watch one hopping through the bush, it never really plants on its heel, it's always springing forward — it's a spring, an energy return, and that's essentially what plate technology does in a shoe. So on a road run, a marathon, a 10K or a 5K, if you're on

[29:14] the road, that energy return is really valuable, because the surface is even — it's just pavement or road. To be clear, in this particular shoe it's not a full plate, they call them rods — I don't know enough about their trail shoe to say whether the rods do the same job as a plate, but there's a stiffening through it that has a similar effect. However, it wasn't quite what I

[29:45] expected. I'm not even going to try running it easy on technical ground, because I'm too worried I'll roll my ankle again. But that's simple enough for people to get their head around — if you're moving in a straight line, that technology helps you spring forward with return every time you plant your foot. But out on a trail, on undulating ground, it might still help you move forward, but the unevenness you encounter — I don't think that's as

[30:18] useful there. I actually disagree, a little — I find the energy return of a plate on trail, used the right way, can be great, you can feel it working well. Where this shoe worries me, if I took it technical, is how high the stack is, how built-up the rubber is. I trialled another shoe, the Nike Zegama, and had a similar experience — it's very aggressively sharp.

[30:49] Hard to explain in audio, but instead of the fall-off from the top of the rubber to the bottom being gradual, it's vertical — so if you go slightly over, you collapse over the whole four centimetres of rubber, or whatever it is. To exaggerate it — it's like being in a pair of high heels, like your mum in heels versus your mum in flats. I love that you can explain what I can't — it's all up here in my head, and that's exactly what it is. So anyway, we've got really

[31:21] deep into a shoe conversation I didn't mean to get into, but I'm glad I tried it — I'll take them back to Sydney tomorrow and hand them back, because they're gone. On that shoe point, though, interestingly, I had a conversation with someone I work with the other day — she runs, she's set herself the goal of three hundred and fifty K's total this year, that's where her running's at. She does parkrun every weekend with her husband, and she's part of the run group

[31:51] I started at my office. She bought herself a pair of Nike Alphaflys — or was it Vaporflys? The Vaporfly's more the 10K shoe, the Alphafly's the thicker marathon shoe with the — what's the white one with the blue tick, the Nike one — anyway, I think she bought Vaporflys. She's worn them twice.

[32:24] She wore them the second time on the weekend, in a 5K parkrun, and had to take them off — finished the run in socks, because she was getting blisters on her arches, couldn't deal with them. She's going to try take them back to Rebel Sport, where she bought them, I don't know if they'll take them back, but it brought up the conversation we've had before on this show — go and try shoes on, try as many as you need to,

[32:56] find the ones that suit you. The Alphaflys or Vaporflys are an awesome shoe if they work for you — but the hotspots, I'll call it, can be anywhere on the foot, under the arch, on the heel, even where your Achilles rubs. It's a hard thing to know until you've done some kilometres in a shoe. You can try one on, it can feel great, you go and run 8K in it, and for some reason, given your foot shape and size, you

[33:28] just get a hotspot. It happens all the time, across every brand. I don't know how you get around that, sometimes it's just a bit of dumb luck. Hopefully you can keep them clean enough to take them back, but that's probably not going to be the case here — I think someone's about to get a really nice gift. That's what happens around here, that's what happens with shoes. So what else did you get up to in Sydney

[34:00] on Friday? Anyone who does the interstate commute for work — how hard is it to get a flight on time on a Friday night? I don't think it's possible to get a flight out of Sydney on time on a Friday night. Doesn't matter who you fly, Virgin, Qantas, doesn't matter, it just doesn't happen.

[34:32] I'm nearly at the point where I'll start booking two hours earlier than I need to on a flight I know is going to be delayed, just to take the chance. It's doing my head in at the moment, both ways — flew down late Thursday night, came back late Friday night, both delayed. You'll be alright, mate — it's okay, first world problems. The problem is we don't have an alternative — they've got us by the short and curlies, the airlines. Even with Rex not flying as much as it used to, we're

[35:06] stuck without a real option. And I've got to figure out the travel back and forth over the next few weeks — dry your eyes, mate, really looking forward to that. What I was down there for was a fitness conference — I was speaking at a fitness conference for a gym chain. What got me was, you know how when you walk into a trade show — like the Gold Coast Marathon or Noosa Expo — all the different brands are set up. I'm down there representing Red Bull, an

[35:36] energy drink, and everything about it. What got me this time was walking past the pre-workout stalls — this is gyms, lifting, HYROX-style gyms — and how wild the pre-workouts are. Have you ever used one? I've never used pre-workout, so I've got a bit of show and tell for you. To put it in perspective, an energy drink is kind of a pre-workout too, because pre-workouts are just heavily caffeinated products.

[36:07] They'll have some supplementation in them, amino acids, branched-chain aminos or whatever, to help pep you up, but in the end it's the caffeine doing the real heavy lifting, it's the stimulant. If you look at a two-hundred-and-fifty-mil Red Bull, the smaller can, it's got about eighty milligrams of caffeine in it. To put that in perspective, most people know an espresso pod now — if you've got one at home, they'll

[36:39] have somewhere between seventy and ninety milligrams, so it's like a standard coffee, a one-shot flat white from your local café. Now, this product, a pre-workout called Buckshot, coming out of the States — I love it, it looks like a twelve-gauge shotgun cartridge, I'll put a picture up on Instagram. It's a classic, I just love the idea. Buckshot, two hundred milligrams of

[37:09] caffeine in that little thing — that's like a triple shot. Is it powder or a tablet? It's a liquid, like a syrup. So what's it like — it's shaped like a twelve-gauge shotgun shell, like in those action films when they cock the shotgun and you see the shell casing fly, that's what it

[37:39] looks like. So, two hundred milligrams of caffeine in that. But then the next step up that got me — I suppose I haven't been around gyms enough lately — was this little packet, literally powder, called Woke AF, with a deer head and big antlers in the colours of the American flag. Same idea as Buckshot, high-stimulant warning again, and it's basically —

[38:13] I've got a feeling sales of that have gone up since Trump won. What's that fizzy candy called — Wizz Fizz? We're basically looking at a Wizz Fizz. It's a high-stimulant warning too, two hundred milligrams of caffeine in that one as well. So what do you mix that one with, water? Is that how it's designed? It says mix in a litre of water — a litre! Okay, my mind's blown by that one. Yep, mate, learning something

[38:45] every day. Here I am at a fitness conference and there were a few things that just made me go, wow. If you're just the average person walking into the gym and going, I'll take some of this — and that's without all the additional supplementation in there too. What's in this one — beta-alanine, alpha-GPC, a few other things I don't recognise, and I'm not

[39:18] the guy who's been in a gym regularly for a long time. I used to be, when I lived in Sydney — a mate of mine now runs two very successful gyms, people out there probably know the Verde's gyms in Bondi. He and his business partner Hamish are absolutely killing it, leaning into that fitness-obsessed, image-obsessed nature of Bondi as a suburb, and they're flying —

[39:50] doing a great job, running a great business. It's the training centre of choice for any visiting footy player or influencer, they've all created that environment, they're doing a great job. But the last time I trained was before my mate Rawson set up those two gyms, when he used to run us out of White City, the tennis centre in Paddington, Sydney. It was circuit-style stuff, not quite HYROX but sort of HYROX-meets-CrossFit, with a bunch of the footy guys. I haven't set foot in a gym

[40:21] like that since, and I think that was just before, or right as, this whole pre-workout industry started becoming mainstream. So I've never embraced it, and I don't think I need it. We're probably not doing enough heavy lifting to warrant pre-workout, you and me, Courtney — I'm definitely not lifting heavy enough to justify any of this. When's the last time you did a bicep

[40:51] curl? I'm doing some exercises lying on my back with the bright pink grandma weights — no one's going to see me walking around with those. I just put some sand in my weights and that's about all I need. Speaking of HYROX, I'm actually catching up with Chris Wooley this weekend down in Byron — he's coming up to help with some HYROX stuff for something I'm involved with. If you're not familiar with the name Chris Wooley, he's a bloke I know through social

[41:21] circles back in Sydney — a firefighter, and a gladiator, really — well, a firefighter turned genuinely elite all-round athlete who can compete in anything. He went on Gladiators, and I think there was another show, a Ninja Warrior-type show, that he went on with some mates. He's a really fit guy, and then HYROX came along

[41:53] and it was perfect for him, because not only is he gym-fit, CrossFit-fit, he's a great runner too. And now in the world of HYROX, he finishes on the podium in most races — he was telling me he's aiming for the double, to get into the top fifteen in the world. He's definitely up there, one of the best. Funny story of how I met him — I had no idea who he was, but we were both in a competition to see who could run the most elevation in a month.

[42:24] Have I told this story? Maybe, not on here though. He was one of three leading at the end of the month, chasing the most elevation, this was a Red Bull thing on Strava — a Strava challenge. I can't remember exactly how much elevation it was, but these guys were going nuts. There was a bit of cat-and-mouse, and he got to the last day and spent thirteen hours climbing steps, I think around Coogee.

[42:54] He did steps for thirteen hours to get the elevation, and ended up missing it by something silly, like two hundred metres. As it happened, the prize for the top two was a trip out for a run in the Northern Territory, and he missed out — I've always felt like I owe him one for that, so let's catch up, I'll take him out for breakfast. He's a good dude, a good dude, so I'm catching up with him this weekend, we'll have a chat. Going back to something we spoke

[43:24] about on a previous episode — I've had tremendous support around the idea of a hundred-kilo-plus category for marathons. Me too, I've had a lot of people say they love this idea, why doesn't it already exist? With that in mind, I need to give a shout-out to Brendan Markham, who I don't know personally, but I've been told he's lost fifty kilos on

[43:56] his running journey — and he'd still sit in that hundred-kilo-plus category. He started this year running a twenty-eight-minute parkrun, and last weekend ran a twenty-one-minute parkrun — dropped seven minutes off his parkrun time while still sitting around a hundred kilos on the scales. With that classification in mind — Clydesdales and Athenas is what this category's called at Noosa —

[44:26] I want to throw some other names at you. Go on. The Kilo Kings and Queens. Keep going. The Heavies. I'm fine with that, but I reckon we'd get some pushback from the audience — you want to be able to declare yourself this. Some people might hear 'Heavies' and think it's an insult — it's not, and that's the whole point we're trying to make. In boxing there's lightweight, strawweight, featherweight, middleweight, cruiserweight,

[44:57] heavyweight — it's just a classification, it doesn't judge you as a person. I personally like the Heavies. The Centurions is the other one I like. I think in our petition we'd struggle with Centurions, but Clydesdale's already a precedent, so I think we could get away with the Heavies. I'm more than happy to push the Heavies when we go into bat for this category. Do you know what — should we make that the poll this week?

[45:28] We can do that — I'll come up with a few more, and we'll put up a poll this week after this episode goes out: what should the hundred-kilo-plus category be called for marathons going forward? Perfect, I feel like we can own this movement, Courtney. Done, done, done. Yeah — anyway, I wanted to get back to that and mention Bo Jones as well, who's probably under that category now. He competed at Kona this year as a guest of Ironman Australia, and he runs a wonderful organisation called Bottler, about mental

[46:00] health, particularly in the triathlon space, and he's right behind the idea — reckons he'll be back up in the hundred-kilo category soon enough. He's going to eat a bit! Well, he got Ironman-fit, but he'll be back up there — big unit, beginner, not a bad guy, just a beginner. How did your mate go — I've forgotten his name — the one trying to run for the whole podcast last week?

[46:31] Graham, 'Snowy' — he didn't make it, didn't get to the sixty-five-minute mark, he's been struggling, he's got that same recurring Achilles soreness as you, actually. Don't, don't, don't mention injuries — well, touch wood, I'm fighting fit at the moment, he took a bit of time off. We have this rule, you do not talk about calves while you're running, if you mention a calf mid-run, that's it, my mate didn't finish the run. Can I throw something at you?

[47:02] Of course you can, Liam. This UTA announcement — do you reckon they're a bit jealous of the Sydney Marathon getting its World Majors status? For those who don't know, UTA, Ultra-Trail Australia, is the pinnacle trail running event in this country. The UTA weekend in the Blue Mountains has a twenty-two K, a fifty K and a hundred K race. Yep, I'd agree — it's the one new trail

[47:32] runners know, and it's the best-known one in Australia. And today, the day we're recording this, after whispers for a while, it's been officially announced — Hoka Ultra-Trail Australia by UTMB is elevating to UTMB World Series major status, with a new hundred-mile race. So from 2025 you'll be able to enter a hundred-mile race, a hundred-and-sixty-

[48:03] kilometre race in the Blue Mountains as part of the Ultra-Trail Australia series. Do we really need another race? What do you think about that? I think they should pick a distance and run the best race at that distance. I understand the financial side, the participation angle of

[48:36] having multiple categories and events, but for me, I want to go to an event where everyone racing runs the same race — UTA's a hundred K race, and everyone who goes there runs that same thing. Just like we've talked about categories before — like a triathlon we won't mention, or any triathlon really, where you go and there's a race, and like we talked about with the Olympics a few weeks back, it just keeps adding more and more and more.

[49:08] It saturates to the point where — and I don't mean this in a bad way — but I want to celebrate something, I want it defined, I want to celebrate that one race. I've got no problem with there being another hundred-mile race somewhere, but to me, at that ultra trail race, the hundred K has always been the golden event. Does adding this take away from

[49:38] the idea that someone can now go further? It's really interesting — I hadn't thought about it that way. You get a buckle or something for finishing the hundred K, right? At UTA you get something — I think the hundred K gets you the buckle, that's been the blue-ribbon event. Sorry, I hadn't thought about it like that, but now that you mention it, the idea that

[50:08] saying you're going to that race immediately tells everyone what you mean — if you said you were racing UTA this year, people used to just know, oh, is it the fifty or the hundred, the eleven or the twenty. But now if you tell somebody you're racing UTA in 2025, they'll ask what distance, because now there's five

[50:39] possible distances. People will probably disagree with me, but I'll use myself as the example — when I've gone down to race UTA, I should be a fifty K runner, I'm not set up for the hundred, that's fine. But in years where I haven't been quite ready for the fifty, I've dropped back to the twenty-two, because I can be more competitive and get on the podium there. But my gut feel is that option shouldn't really exist —

[51:11] if I want to race, I should have to go and race the fifty. I'll be really interested to see what the take-up is on the hundred-mile race next year. I'll be fascinated. The reason it's been added is to create another qualifying option for UTMB, in Chamonix, France — Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, that's the race, that's the place — that's the reasoning, and I think the idea is it adds status. But my argument is that by

[51:46] adding the status, you're actually diluting the event, and I'll leave it there. It's a really interesting take, a good one. I'll wait to see what the take-up is on the hundred-mile option, and I'd also be curious what the course looks like. Are you interested in running the hundred miler yourself? I've got an itch to scratch there, a few itches actually — I've told you I want to do an Ironman, and I'd love to do a hundred-mile race just to experience it.

[52:19] I'm nowhere near capable of doing it right now, though. Would you want to do this one, the UTA hundred-miler, or pick another? No, and not because it's not appealing, but because I've done the fifty K race in the Blue Mountains, and I feel like that course gives you all the highlights of the area — I don't think the hundred K or hundred-mile course takes you anywhere especially new. I think the fifty K course is amazing —

[52:51] you get the Furber Stairs at the end, you go down the Giant Stairway, run through the valley floor, along narrow single-trail sections — it's a great run, really challenging, the stairs are murderous on your quads, but you get to experience all those amazing parts of the Blue Mountains. I don't know that fifty or a hundred more K's of that shows you much that's genuinely new.

[53:21] So if I was going to tackle the hundred K or hundred-mile distance, I'd be more inclined to go do Kosciuszko instead, because from what people who've run it tell me, it's not quite as scenic as UTA, but I haven't done it, haven't seen it myself. If I'm going to commit to a hundred K, I'd want it to be a new experience — I'd rather find

[53:53] something over in New Zealand — I just saw a reel of some run influencers doing the Queenstown Marathon, and that looked amazing, beautiful. I'd rather go find a hundred K over there to target, since I've never run there and I'd love to see something new. I haven't raced the Snowy Mountains myself, but I've done a fair bit of exploring around there, and if you said to me Blue

[54:23] Mountains or Snowy Mountains, I'd take the Snowies every time. There's something about that alpine nature of trail running — being up high with that vantage point, versus rainforest, and maybe that's because we already live somewhere with terrain quite similar to the Blue Mountains, right here on the back of the Gold Coast. I'll always take the more alpine version of running,

[54:53] because it's something new and different. Maybe, but I also think it's the elevation, there's something about being up on top of the world. That's a nice thought — picture that on your next run, whenever you're listening to this. We've got a few more minutes, Courtney. We do — I want to do an exercise with you, and everyone listening. Most people out there are probably part of a run club or run group of some kind, and I've tried to categorise run clubs. I've put together a few lists,

[55:26] generalisations for sure, but as you listen, try and work out which one is your run club or run group. So I'm going to pick which one I'm joining. You stick your head in — I'm going to choose which one I'm joining, or if you want to be honest, which one you might already be part of. Right, so Run Club One is what I'm calling the Gratitude Group — every run starts with a five-minute chat about gratitude, given by the official leader of the group. There's always an official leader, always talking about

[55:56] gratitude at the start. The group's free, runners of every level — joggers, walkers, and some genuinely good runners mixed in. Could be anywhere from twenty to fifty people showing up each session. Do I get a cuddle? Yeah, that's the kind of group where cuddles are encouraged, and post-run you sit down and breathe together as a group. So that's Group One, the Gratitude Group.

[56:27] Definitely not my group. Not your group, no. What about this one — this is what I call the Pay to Play group, Run Club Two. This is a club that will genuinely improve your running and get you hitting PBs, if that's what you're after. This one's exciting me a bit more. The sessions are planned by a coach with designed outcomes — very much, we're doing this because it produces that. They've been to running school, a proper coaching

[56:58] background. Yeah — and you're going to pay, the session costs you ten bucks a hit. That's cheap, isn't it — depends what the going rate is, I've never paid for a run group myself. And the other part of this club is that when you turn up to race something like that 5K relay, or City to Surf, you race as part of this group — it's very much a club, less of a loose group, more of a proper run club. That's what I call the Pay to

[57:28] Play club. Yep, that's got my interest. Run Group Three is the Casual Club — if it's raining, cold, or there's something big on the night before, this run probably isn't happening. It says 5am start, but you probably won't actually get going till around 5:15. There's red flags all over this one. When you do start running, it's always at a conversational pace, and the post-run coffee is the most important part.

[58:01] This is about as relaxed as a run club gets — it's a popular type of group right now, and my guess is that's not your kind of club. No, no. The last one I'm calling the Grahame Group — I think you saw one of these over in the States, and there are probably quite a few of these on the Gold Coast too. It's more disco than run club — shirts off, abs out, somebody's carrying a speaker.

[58:31] They obviously write this one. The group leaders are filming every second of every run for an Insta reel, and the merch matters as much as the running does. Not your club either, I take it. No, no, no — I'm pretty obviously out of all of them, in the Pay to Play, though we still don't know how much you actually pay. But I've bunched these up, and

[59:01] which one are you, honestly? I'm probably somewhere between the Casual Club and Pay to Play, because the reality is I'm finding I'm running on my own more and more lately — not because I want to, just because of life. Life's making it difficult to get to the run clubs I want to be part of, so I'm running by myself more, and because of my work situation I've got a bit more free time

[59:35] during the day and less in the mornings and evenings, so I'm running what we've called pro hours before. Sometimes running on your own is great — you can listen to something, think about things. But when I was in Sydney last week I caught up with a mate who used to live up here on the Gold Coast, Linden, and we ran out to Malabar from Coogee, along the beaches, and that reminded me how good it is to run with someone. You can run an hour and it feels like five minutes if

[01:00:07] you've got the right person to run with. Over the years, where I've struggled — not a challenge exactly — is running with someone purely for the sake of running. If I'm running with someone, I want it to be like us here, we could sit and talk for three hours — well, my conversation would slow up significantly after the first half hour, but we'd just run and chat for as long as we could. So there's no real —

[01:00:37] that's the idea of running with someone for me: you're not actually thinking about the running, it becomes easy, especially coming back from injury or feeling sore, because you're just concentrating on the conversation. Running with a group, though, is different — my purpose there is to benefit from competition, to be pushed, to get more out of my running. Whereas I'll lean more toward the individual side if I want

[01:01:09] company on a run, and use the group purely to get competitive. I think we're almost entering — because of how popular running's become — a bloke who's getting mentioned a bit, who runs a group I sometimes get out to when I've got my act together, Eddie Gordon, coined a phrase the other day after that 5K relay: hobby joggers, and whether or not the word 'runner' as a

[01:01:41] classification needs to be reserved for people actively trying to improve, and whether everyone else should be classified as a hobby jogger. I don't care what you're doing — running, jogging, walking, if you're out there — and I'm not just sitting on the fence here, I probably wouldn't have said this ten years ago, I probably would have taken the piss a bit.

[01:02:11] But I really don't care anymore — if I see someone running down the street, out there doing it, good on them, absolutely, one hundred percent. And can they call themselves a runner? They can call themselves a runner — a runner's a runner, if you can run, you can run, we can all run, in the end. One more thing — I had a story the other day about groups. If you run past a group and see them congregating, have a look at

[01:02:42] their shoes. Look at the group, then look at their shoes — can you tell what type of group it is just from what the majority are wearing? There's the challenge. It came out of — I'm going to put this one in the Gratitude Group category — there's nothing wrong with them, but I think you'd be able to tell just by seeing mostly white sneakers,

[01:03:12] maybe a couple of black pairs — more of a gym look, not many coloured shoes. It's almost like a walking-slash — I'm trying to think of the New Balance shoe I mean, big thick rubber sole — is it the endorphin, or is that a Saucony? I think that's Saucony, anyway, I know what you mean. Black or white shoes, and that's — try this next time you run past a run group,

[01:03:44] have a look at the majority of shoes they're wearing, it'll tell you a lot about the group. So if it's the Pay to Play group, I reckon you'll find a lot of carbon plates, maybe ninety percent, switching shoes out within the session — because it's the only piece of equipment you use when you run. Casual Club, lots of Kayanos? Yeah, a lot of them — I was talking to someone the other day about Kayanos, because that's what they grew up wearing when it was more of a cross-trainer shoe than a running shoe, and I was showing them how these

[01:04:16] days the Kayano's transitioned away from being that everyday, play-tennis, go-to-the-gym, do-everything shoe, and it's much more of a dedicated running shoe now. I think that also had to do with your specialist running shops and online shops, whereas the general sports stores would always heavily push the Kayano. That was so weird, wasn't it — the podiatrists sort of

[01:04:48] conditioned people to think it was the shoe to have, the running shoe — great marketing job all those years, and it's still trading on that a little bit today. Anyway — have a look at the shoes in your run club next time. We're nearly done, but I've got one more thing, because we tried an Instagram reel last week, and another one on Strava users, and we've joked a bit about Strava — should you show all your runs, is it really a social platform or a performance platform. This one's from a guy called Matt Leon — have a listen, he's pretty good.

[01:05:22] "Your running pace is too quick, you deserve way more attention than you're getting. And so, from that moment on, I signed up for Strava. My name is Dopamine, and I have no idea how people in the early 2000s did it — imagine going out to exercise and the only benefit you get is physical wellbeing. Going for a run is kind of like a tree falling in the woods — if nobody's around to see it, did it really happen? That's why even if I'm just getting mail at the end of the

[01:05:54] driveway, it's going public — I want Kathy from the county to think, wow, movement down to a science. Last week I got a new PR on a five-mile segment, so I posted the screenshot on my Instagram story with the caption 'light work' and a little double emoji. I want people to know that while I might seem like a professional athlete already, my ceiling is up here. I had a bunch of buddies over last night to watch Oppenheimer — when they walked in, I had a projector set up, and we spent the next four hours analysing my mile splits instead. A few of them left, saying they wanted to watch a movie."

[01:06:27] And I'm just like, is my life not a movie? What jumped out at me during that — I really enjoyed the driveway PR bit, by the way — at work during the week we have these monthly lunches, every couple of months a different team's responsible, and you theme it up, Mexican food, everyone wears sombreros, that sort of thing. Anyway, the team I'm on

[01:06:59] was responsible for the most recent one, and one of the things we'd done on the radio show was make this democracy sauce, which I've told you about before, and we had some leftover, so we did a big barbecue. The theme was an election, since we still had the democracy sauce going, and one of the people on our team had made up candidate posters for everyone. One of the blokes, a massive Broncos fan, had 'Vote for Graham, we'll live-stream every Broncos

[01:07:33] game,' with all his policies laid out, and mine was 'Liam for President — will run for you, will run to the fridge, in fact we'll just run everywhere and tell you all about it.' That's me — I am that guy in my office. What was the other one — if a tree falls in the forest, if you go for a run and don't post it on Strava, did it really

[01:08:04] happen? That's a good one to leave it on. We challenge you — if you're out listening on this run, don't upload today's run, see if you can go to sleep tonight. See you next week.