EP 11 - SPORTMAN LUNCHES | BEER MILES | BN2032 & THE FAMOUS BROWN SNAKE

[00:00] In the beginning, episode 11, and Courtney, I'll apologise straight off the top for my voice and the state it's in at the moment, because it's been a week. It's been a week for both of us. Yeah, mate, I got to see you in action — I've known you obviously from your radio show, we chat a lot in the forest and on the phone, but I got to see you in your MC action. Even I got to see you at the North Burleigh Sportsman's Lunch on Friday last week down at Burleigh Brewing.

[00:31] Local, local, mate. Yeah, first of all, I'm glad I've got you to help me with this show, or me to help you with the show — we're doing it together, so it's great. But you're definitely the professional, and mate, it's a tough ask when you're MC-ing one of those events when all everyone's interested in doing is thinking about beers. Yeah, it was a great event, raising money for surf clubs. I really enjoy doing them, I think it's fun, I like being the centre of attention — put a microphone in my hand with

[01:01] a group of people and I have a great day. But it's tricky, because you're fighting against two opposing ideas: one is pay attention to me and listen to me, and the other is what everybody sitting down there actually wanted to do, which was drink and talk amongst themselves. But it was an incredible day, because it was an Olympic year, and the idea behind the lunch was to get Olympians associated with

[01:31] the event, and somehow — you said somehow raced for North Burleigh, or been involved. Gold medallist Murray Stewart was there, obviously yourself, you had Emma Moffatt, three-time Olympian in triathlon, Ky Hurst, and Emma's husband Dan Balker, who was also a paddler, another Olympian. Surf clubs seem to be a real breeding ground for paddlers. Yeah, exactly. It was an awesome lunch, and there were some other incredible people in the room,

[02:03] but ultimately the other thing that plays a part in it — and I'll say this to anybody out there who's involved in events or looking to host a lunch — is the sound system is the most important thing. If you're having an event where someone's on stage with a microphone, you need to make sure the sound system is A, working, and B, reaching all parts of the room. It's got to be loud enough to hear, because if you're at the bar and at one

[02:33] stage — I think I was looking at you while you were trying to do one of the prizes, or the raffles, and you're just going 'they can't hear me.' I was looking at you going, mate, I feel for you right now. But it was a great day, a great day, they raised a lot of cash, which is the main thing. The other thing I'll say is shout out to teachers, because I get it now — that's why I could never be a teacher. The idea of trying to control a classroom, that's as close as I'll ever get to that, standing in front of a lunch of 130-odd people and trying to get them to pay attention to me for 20 minutes at a time.

[03:03] So, great day. And it was strange, because you and I were up on stage essentially doing a bit of Q&A for a very brief moment, and you were actually really disappointed because you wanted to talk more. Awfully disappointed, you wanted more questions. I'd got into kind of 'better if' mode, and I was — you were on point, people were there to hear us talk about the Olympics. But I wanted to tell some of my old stories about when I was a young fella at the surf club. And it was funny, because when my

[03:35] good mate Dane Murray, who's now vice president there, finally got to come to the bar and have a beer, I said, well, the story I wanted to tell — and I went on to explain it to you — it literally involved a bus, me being 15, Grafton, and strippers, and we kind of decided that probably wasn't the audience. No, probably wasn't the audience. But that's a great story, maybe for another time. In short, after that event I had my work Christmas party, then I went back to Adelaide for

[04:06] a 40th — that's why my voice is how it is at the moment, so apologies for that. Did I miss that you went to a Christmas party as well? Straight after the North Burleigh lunch I had a Christmas party in Brisbane, travelled up there, then flew back to Adelaide, and I got back from Adelaide on Monday. So it's been a whirlwind, but I'm here and I've still managed to squeeze in a little bit of running. I'm actually interested — I saw you playing golf as well last week, you forgot about that. Yeah, well, there's another

[04:37] one, I can tell you that story now. I have a particular disdain, or dislike, for golf — I just don't have the time to be spending five hours out there. Can I propose another theory as to why you don't enjoy it? Of course you can. I don't think water-based athletes are overly hand-eye coordinated. That's probably true too. I think water athletes, for the most part — and I know there are exceptions to the rule — aren't the most hand-eye coordinated people, so social sports like tennis and golf and all that stuff,

[05:10] because you spend so much time just living in pools and in the ocean, you never develop that hand-eye. Could be that — equilibrium in the water, I don't know. But how do you play, like what do you think of it? Oh, I love golf, I think it's a great sport. A bit of backstory — the BMW Australian PGA Championship is held up at Royal Queensland every year, and this year had a great line-up: you had Marc Leishman, Cam Smith, Jason Day, it was a good field. They have the Pro-Am event on the Wednesday, which is basically where a pro who's playing in the tournament that

[05:41] starts on the Thursday gets paired up with amateurs in a group of three, so there's a group of four of you going around. It's an incredible opportunity for average punters and media types to play the course with a pro, and the pro essentially uses it, with their caddy, as a way to recon the course, have a look at things — they still play the full round, so they're semi-serious while they're doing it. Yeah, absolutely, it's basically — so I played with a French pro by the name of Adrien Saddier, who ended

[06:12] up making the cut, I think he finished in a tie for about 40th at the end of the tournament. It's sort of like it'd be like you going to an event where you're a paid or invited guest, and there's an expectation on you to engage with people — you're there to do a job, but there's also an expectation to engage. So Adrien was talking to us and answering questions, but he's also got to do his job for

[06:42] the next four days and play this golf course, so he was very much concentrating with his caddy, assessing the greens, trying to get a feel of where the pins were going to be placed and all that sort of stuff. You don't speak French either, do you? I speak very bad French, because he was speaking French on the side, kind of going 'these bastards, why do we have to do this every week.' His English was incredible, there was no need for my bad French. But also his caddy, who was a Frenchman but sounded like he was from London — he grew up in London, his dad used to play in the Premier

[07:13] League. So it was an incredible experience — amazing day. I played with the Gold Coast Suns' Sam Flanders, who you know. Yep, we were talking a little bit about running. Did you have good words about me? Bad words. Yeah, absolutely — given him a flogging one day out from training. No, well, Sam, for those who don't know, is a high draft pick, very talented young player, came out of Victoria, and for his first three years at the Suns just couldn't really find a spot under Stuart Dew, and then

[07:46] Stuart Dew moved on, Damien Hardwick's now in charge, and under Damien Hardwick, Sam Flanders has had the second most disposals in the competition. And for mine, he was robbed of a spot in the All-Australian squad — I think he finished third in the Suns' best and fairest. He's a star footballer and now he's really getting to fulfil his potential under Damien Hardwick. So I loved it, and I could have chewed his ear off, but I tried my best not to — in the same way I didn't want to annoy Adrien Saddier about golf, I tried not to grill Sam Flanders and get all the information for the year in

[08:18] one session. And then we had King of the Coast, Channel Nine's Luke Bradnam — came along, fishing guru, man about town, knows everybody. So we had a great day out, and because of the weather conditions — it's generally a proper tournament with a winner and all the rest of it, but because of the rainy conditions the organisers wound the seriousness of it back, and basically we just had a bit of a hit-and-giggle around 18 holes in rural Queensland. But an incredible, incredible day. Yeah, great.

[08:49] Great, and we're here again. It's been an absolute whirlwind week — I haven't even had a chance to reset the desk we're sitting at this week. I'll start with my Saturday, because at the moment my favourite, best possible day is one when I've got nothing to do here at home and just plod around, sit on the couch, change the oil in the motorbike. Hopefully you can get out this weekend.

[09:20] Just the simple things. Got a little run in — I did reduce my kilometres last week, not by want but by need, or sorry, not by want, by need, just because of where I was and travel, and we've talked about this before, how you've got to adjust on the go. So I only got through 60 kilometres running last week, I missed a few days running. That's just for context, though — that is a big drop for you, because you'd been up over 100 K's for the last, what, three weeks? Yeah, weeks, yeah.

[09:50] And we said last time that I was consciously taking a bit of a down week, but that down week became — I actually missed three days of running through travel and other activities. So I think when we last spoke, I'd headed down to the back of Byron Bay to recon and scout out a trail course I was doing yesterday with a whole group of fitness crew involved with Red Bull Australia. Then the next morning I was up early, flying to Sydney at

[10:23] six a.m. So I never got to run that day, spent the day sitting down, and then I had three nights in a row of functions, in pubs, not the greatest food, a few beers. And it just kind of catches up on the sleep, and this is what I try and preach — you can have all the best-laid plans in the world, all the structure in the world, but when life starts throwing other things at you that you've got to do, the first thing you've got to think about is how do I adjust my training and still get the most out of

[10:54] it. And that's that idea of consistency over perfection, right — because nobody's life is a simple spreadsheet you can just block out, this then this then this then this. Even the idea of coming back from a few days in Sydney, long nights, limited sleep, coming straight back to see you at North Burleigh on the beers that afternoon — it was a bit quieter, but it just adds up over a few days, and then suddenly by the time I get to Saturday I was buggered, mate. So what did you do then? What did you

[11:26] do — before you tell us, because in my mind, and I'm trying to do this less, I would go out for a punishment run, I would take myself out and try to catch it all up. That's exactly right — I'd have the mentality of, hey, you've just done three days of beers, probably not your best eating and a lot of inactivity, you've got to go out and try to catch up, and somewhat punish yourself, and probably go out and

[11:57] try to run 20 K's or something like that. No, I just listened to the body — you know when you're tired, and the worst thing you can do then is go out and try to punish yourself. And I know that where I really know I'm tired these days is around sleep — I can go on pretty limited sleep, five to six hours for a couple of days, but then there's that one day where it's like all the bricks on the fence come tumbling down, it all comes down, and halfway through the middle of the day I'm like, holy hell, I've got to sleep.

[12:28] I need my grandpa nap or whatever. So I got out on the Saturday and did my normal forest loop, the 17K loop around the forest where I run up the hills pretty much at tempo and then keep the flats at a good float. And I was tired, so I just canned my Sunday long run — took the day off Sunday, and that's what probably dropped, what, 20-plus K's out of it, missed a couple of days by being down in Sydney.

[12:58] And that's a 60K week. That's 60K, that's right. So that's how it pans out. And the last few days, where have I been? I've been down in Byron Bay — Red Bull have been running a thing that's getting people from all walks of life and fitness. We talked about Chris Wooley, pretty much an expert in the HYROX area, he was down there helping out with some training. And we had a range of different, you know, run influencers — the ones with big

[13:29] audiences online, both male and female, and they had a great time down there. They had world champion wakeboarder Cory Teunissen, took him out on the boat on the Monday. Saya Sakakibara — oh yes, Olympic gold medallist — took him around the pump track. And then I got to come in on the third day, and I was thinking, God, following these two up, I'm going to be the most boring bastard around, taking the crew on a trail run. But it's interesting, because when you've got that fitness audience, you know,

[13:59] they were up before we went running, on the weights in the house and getting going. I asked around and said, what was your favourite session, and a few of them — probably a bit biased when I'm asking them directly — but I do think they loved the idea of the trail run, because it's what they do. So I took them down into Nightcap National Park, which blew me away, I hadn't been down there, and all of them were just like, holy hell, this is amazing — a few of them had never been on trails before, and it was a whole new world. But where I'm leading with this story is that it

[14:32] got interesting, because we talked about groups and managing groups. I had ten differing standards of runner, I hadn't seen any of them run before, and I put them around an eight-kilometre loop with just under 400 metres of vert. It's a solid run — it's hot at the moment. Some of it was on single track, there were steps in it, but most of it was open fire road. But the point is, how do you manage a group when you've got to try and keep them all together, and you've got runners from, you know, a pretty

[15:03] reasonable standard — I'd say the quickest were three-hour marathoners, right through to literally runners who said, I've never run eight kilometres in my life. I well, the way I'd manage it — I probably wouldn't take that group on that route, but you've got to be careful, right, because you've got to give everyone the opportunity to come and join in as well. So how do you manage a group across that standard? What I did, which was a really good way to feel it all out, was I purposely started

[15:35] them on a really tough hill. As soon as we got into the run, within the first 200 metres, I started them on a tough — it would have been a good 800 metres — I'd say maybe a 10 to 12 percent hill, not too crazy. Why? Because I was watching, and at that stage I could start to look around the group and go, hey, I'm going to have to suggest maybe it's not the best part of the day for some of them — it was an audition, essentially.

[16:05] Yeah, and it was a really good way to do it, because everyone got a chance to have a go and see what it was like, and then you can make your own decision out of that, like what am I going to do — because if we get caught four kilometres over in the back of the forest, it's a long way out of there. And the other thing, now that I think about it, is it's much easier — I imagine, in that environment, everyone has a level of ego, right, ego's a spectrum, some of us are at the big end of it

[16:36] and others not so much. But if you've just been sent up an 800-metre hill with a decent incline and grading, and someone offers you an exit ramp — you've just busted up 800 metres and someone comes over and says, hey mate, just so you know, we're going to be doing this, but if you'd like to do this instead — if someone hands you an easier option, it's much easier to say yes to it off the back of that than it would be if you were fresh at the start of the day. Yeah, because you don't want to miss out. No, exactly.

[17:06] And two, this group are all fitness enthusiasts, so they want to give it their best. But the way it worked out, it was a really nice way to manage the group — some of them were then able to go and meet us going the opposite way around the loop, and at one point we said, okay, there's a finish, it's one kilometre up those steps. And then we took the rest of the group who wanted more, another eight K's down into the valley. So it was an interesting day out, but a great day out — that idea of managing groups, because

[17:37] I think, too, at the moment in the run world, where we're seeing the creation of the running group, that's kind of the trick, right — what is this run group, is it a run group for the three-hour marathoners, or a run group for everybody? And for people who might be in charge of running groups and creating something like that, it's a difficult thing to figure out, because you don't want to be the person that says to someone,

[18:08] you can't run fast enough, or you can't run far enough to be part of this group, because it's about inclusivity and joining in for the most part. I did this in my office, because people were so sick of hearing me talk about running — I said, I might come for a run, and they'd go, oh, I won't be able to keep up with you, and I'm like, you don't have to. So the run group I created in the office — we did the last run of it just yesterday, because I'm moving on somewhere else next year, we'll talk more about that another time.

[18:39] But it was 31 minutes once a week, out-and-back — I said run out 16 minutes, run back 15 minutes, trying to teach a little bit of the idea of negative splitting, running faster in the back half than the front half. But also that way we all started together and all finished together, and everybody could run at the pace that suited them. That's great. Now, some days I'd run it and

[19:09] in my head I'd think, I don't know if I'm getting much out of this, because I'd run with the next-fastest person and it wasn't pushing me. But at the same time, not every run needs to be a performance-enhancing run — especially if you're giving back and helping others out. Yeah, we do that all the time. You're making me think, though, about the one — when I'm in that group structure, for a single session with an outcome, if you do want to do a session with a group, the one I love that works with people

[19:39] of all different levels, instead of doing 1K reps, is just doing three-minute efforts with a break in the middle, out and back — everyone can run out as far as they need to, and by the time they get back to the finish, everyone's together. Now the caveat with that one — a bit of ego comes into it, people push a little too hard on the way out and then flatten on the way back, a bit of old-school mentality — is that if you don't make it back to the finish line on the return effort, you

[20:12] go again, you go for the extra efforts. You quickly realise, if you want to teach people how to negative split, that's a great way to do it. Oh, I love that one. I'm back in the gym — I want to tell you about this, because it's been a long time since I've been in a traditional gym, I've only been back once. Generally, the new Palm Beach Aquatic Centre has opened up just near my place, so I've jumped back in there, and I went back to the gym for the first time.

[20:43] I've done some of those group training sessions, which I enjoy, but I reckon it's been almost — what am I now, 40 — it's probably been 19 years since I've been a member of a gym and turned up with the intent of, maybe not 15 years at least, though. And I went back to the gym the other day and I remembered why I prefer running over gyms, because with running, you start,

[21:15] you're out, you're going, and there's no one getting in your way unless you're running on the concourse at the mall. But I found a generic full-body session to go back with, not to go crazy, I didn't want to not be able to walk the next day. And it specified the machines I needed to use and all the rest of it, and at one point I needed the leg press machine, and there was only one in the gym, and there was a woman using it, and fine, she was there,

[21:45] but it's the sitting on the phone in between your sets for three minutes and not doing anything with the machine. Oh, so you had to wait for her, you couldn't jump in between? Well, I looked — I was like, I don't know the etiquette, I don't go to the gym. Maybe I should have just tapped her on the shoulder and said, do you mind if I share this with you? But it's been over 15 years since I've been at a gym and I don't know what the etiquette is. So I'm like, I'll just jump to something else in the programme. And then one of the other things was some dumbbell bench

[22:17] press, and all the benches were taken. And again, I don't mind the benches being taken, but it's the fact that there was a lot of sitting around, either looking at yourself in the mirror or on your phone. And it's — maybe I found myself sitting there thinking, I wish I was out running, because if I'm out running I'm doing something, and I'm not having to wait for people who aren't exercising but are rather sitting around looking at their phones or staring at themselves in the

[22:49] mirror. I found it really frustrating. Are there gyms where you hand your phone in before you go in? I mean, they'd probably lose half their membership if they did that. This gym did say something about not taking photos and videos, which I get, given the amount of gym content you see on socials these days — it must be infuriating. But it was just the mucking around between actual exercise, I found myself going,

[23:20] this is so frustrating. I don't know your pain, mate, but I stay clear of them — I've actually got a gym membership, though. When was the last time — you didn't know that? I don't think it's called My Fitness Passport or something, through healthcare, and my wife works, so the whole family gets involved, and I can go down to EMF if I want. I've done a bit of yoga down there, so I've used it for that, and good intentions to go to the gym and use it, but I just can't bring myself to go into a gym for the sake of what I want out of a

[23:52] strength session — I've got most of it in the garage and kind of get away with it. And for the sake of just going in, I've got a mate who goes to something like EMF just to do his calf raises on the machine. I think that's — that's a big ask just to go and buy some kettlebells for home, but he's sorted some other ways around it. There's some other ways around it, but yeah, I'm going to go back, because I do want to start bringing a bit of lifting into the week. Just with summer coming and

[24:22] summer coming, I don't know, a bit of vanity, and I've been drinking too many beers, but I've got to figure out the right time of day so I'm as little impacted as possible, so I don't suffer too much from it. Well, when you're on full pro hours in the future — can't be too busy at 11am at the gym, yeah, or is everyone on pro hours these days? Well, it seems like on the Gold Coast where we live, everyone's on pro hours. That's true. Quickly, another follow-up I had, I wanted to share — going back to

[24:54] Alicia, who's part of the run crew, I mentioned her in last week's episode as the one running in the Nike Alphaflys, the hotspots, the hotspots. I said she was going to take these back to Rebel, where she bought them, after running in them twice — Rebel accepted them, took the shoes back, and she exchanged them for the New Balance FuelCells. Which is funny, because they probably weigh nothing, but she said they're much

[25:24] heavier than the Nike Alphaflys of mine, which is a ridiculously light shoe. But they took them back, happy to change them over — well done, Rebel Sport. One of the young guys out the back at Rebel Sports is now running around in a pair of Alphaflys with 16K on them, for free. See, that's what I said about shoes — you always give them to a friend one way or another, they get there. Well, I'm excited actually on that point, because I just found a bloke who's the same shoe size as me. That's always a good find, and I'm

[25:55] now like, great, guess what, you're part of the unofficial shoe exchange programme I'm about to embark on. I think I'll have a new shoe review for us next week, actually, the Nike Pegasus. Interesting — it's been a long time since I've run a pair of Nikes. Lot of legacy in that shoe. I've got a feeling that's probably one of the first shoes I actually ran in, as a kid. Yep, I remember having a pair of Nike Pegasus when I was probably about 11, but I haven't run Nikes, or certainly Pegasus, for a

[26:28] very long time. I can't remember the trainers so much, but I definitely remember at school wearing the Nike Waffles in cross country, in the track shoes, because there wasn't that much choice back then. But over the years the Pegasus was a staple in my teenage years, so it'll be interesting — I think I'm going to have my hands on a pair before next week and I'll have a shoe review. Beautiful. Talking about — well, shoes, but running in general — we had our poll, I got a poll up, I've been a bit slack on

[26:58] the socials, but on the In the Beginning Pod Instagram we had a good suggestion too — we've put all the polls up in the highlights, so we can go back and look at the different polls. Generally we won't do ones that are just full of crap, we want some kind of outcome, and we're particularly invested in the outcome of this one — it's the preferred name for that 100-kilogram category, or 80-kilogram for the women, at marathons. In triathlon it's known as Clydesdales.

[27:30] I put Clydesdales in there, and it looks like the original name wins, because 50% of the audience want Clydesdale still. So if you're listening to these episodes out of order and haven't heard the chat we've had on this previously — the idea is that at Noosa Triathlon there's a specific category for the 100-kilo athletes and above, called the Clydesdales for the men, Athenas for the women. You and I are both huge advocates that marathon running in particular should embrace this category and celebrate it. This isn't about trying to shine a negative

[28:03] spotlight on these athletes, it's completely the opposite — anybody at that size who's embarking on running 42-plus kilometres should be celebrated and get their own specific category. Because I'm never going to do it, and when I see people of that size running, I'm like, you're a hero, that's more genuinely inspiring to me than seeing a 60-kilo whippet sprinting along at three-minute pace.

[28:33] And they want it and they own it. Exactly. There's a lot — we're going to make this happen. I don't know where, but we will make it happen. We're going to do it on the Gold Coast, mate, you're a king around here. I'm trying to grow my influence slowly but surely, but we are genuinely going to keep pushing this. I've had so much feedback from people saying they love the idea. And it's not — again, there's that fear factor when you talk about weight and that sort of stuff, that people think you're automatically being nasty, when it's not what we're trying to do — it's the complete

[29:04] opposite, and we want to keep pushing for it. So we're sticking with Clydesdales. Clydesdales — hit your heavies. I like the category name of the Heavies as a new name, that came in at 23%, and Centurions at 20%. So they were both liked, but looks like the original wins. We're going to get in touch with the organisers of the respective marathons — I'd love to see Sydney, being a major now, take it up. Do we know if any of the other major marathons run with this category? I don't know in Australia, so if anyone knows, give us a shout, but

[29:37] I did see it in the States — not sure which marathon, I've seen it at a marathon over there, I can't name it. It's been done. Let's go. So, this is a hard Instagram name — Lad in K, or Ladneck, I don't know who you are, it's a bit of a disguise, shoot me your full name. But that was a good idea. So all the polls we've done, including the best-known runner

[30:07] in Australia poll, the original one we kicked off with, it's all up there in the highlights, you can go check that out. Now, Courtney, you've been scrolling the internet for running events — haven't had much time on the net this week, but I did see an interesting one, we talk a lot about how do we reinvent running, make things more interesting, we've talked about relays and a whole range of stuff — well, I saw a great running event at the Paris Supercross, so Supercross being, you know, motorbike riding in a stadium over jumps and berms and all of that.

[30:38] And it was called the Handlebar Race — literally a field of 20 running the motocross track holding handlebars in their hands, so kind of like hobby-horse riding, we've had a bit of a joke about the old hobby horse. This is racing with handlebars around the stadium track — you know the whoops, the real close rollers you see in Supercross. We know from running downhill on mountain bike tracks how difficult it is to handle really steep up-and-down quick hills. This was hilarious, and if you think about it, if you're

[31:09] running right now, or in the car, think about holding a bike handlebar with two hands as you're running — it means you can't use your arms side to side for balance. If you're running along right now listening to this, which I know a lot of people do, just for the next 20 metres put your arms out in front of you as if you're holding onto your bike, and try to run. It completely means you've got to use your core. So these guys were going down, left, right and centre, it was pretty funny. But it got me thinking about unique runs — if you've done one, let us know, but it got me thinking myself, what are the three most unique runs I've done. I'll go first —

[31:42] one was called the White Dragon Run. That's a translation from Japanese, I don't know what it is in Japanese, but I was over in Japan, this is a uni student race, don't know exactly where it was, somewhere in the south, but the event was 3,333 steps up to a monastery.

[32:12] Seen you post about this run — 3,300-odd steps, so if this is you kind of going, I'm decent at running steps or I can go uphill, this just went on and on and on, and all these little university Japanese whippets just touted me up, absolutely touted me up. I've got so many questions, because I remember when you posted about this — how many years ago did you do this? Oh, it could have been three or four.

[32:42] Yeah, so, 3,300 steps up to a monastery — how do you know what distance, kilometre-wise, you covered? You're going to test my memory, but I reckon it was over about a kilometre and a half, two K. It was sharp — no break in the steps, no flat bit, it's just steps, from a tradition of walking, in Asian tradition, up to the monasteries and Buddhist-style temples.

[33:14] But it was just unique — where else would you find that many steps hit up a hill? For anybody out there who's raced UTA, the grand staircase you go down, but then there's the finish chute, which is the Furber Steps at the end. Is it 900? Yeah, it's 900, and that at the end of a 50K race or whatever is brutal. I think, three times that, and sprinting — so you're starting off fresh.

[33:44] How did you go? Third, like I said, third — a couple of young women just took me down. Thank you, thanks. But how did you feel physically at the end of it? I felt bloody awful, really — it's a long, if you're not training steps specifically, stair climbing is one of those things you've got to be specifically training for to do well. There's another event we were talking about with the crew I was just down in Byron Bay with, called the Red Bull 400, a 400-metre

[34:14] race that goes straight up a ski slope. You know the ski slope you jump off, and they do these all around — there's one in Japan, one in Austria. We actually had Tim Vincent win an event with us, and his prize was to go and race the Red Bull 400. He was meant to do it in Japan but ended up doing it in Austria, this was post-COVID, and even though he's a top-10 marathon runner in Australia now, of all time, he wasn't even in the race over there.

[34:44] Really — when I say not in the race, I mean he wasn't even in contention. No, I mean, up the top of that you're literally trying to climb up, it's actually not so much about running, more about strength. Pretty much, so. That race, where was it in Japan? So this was in Japan, yeah — I flew into Osaka, so it must have been that way somewhere. That would have been — that was a good one, that was definitely unique. Have you ever, just quickly on those stair-race type things —

[35:14] have you ever done one of those run-the-stadium things? No. Okay, have you? We should. No, I haven't, I'd like to do one one day. How does that work? Well, basically you have to run each staircase in a stadium — like you see it in the movies, the training, the hero footy player training up the stadium. I'd like to do one, but if I'm honest it looks boring as hell. I always thought that was just for photo shoots anyway, but maybe there is one in Australia. Okay, the second race — we move across to Spain. So the one race, when I started

[35:46] trail running after my triathlon career, the one race I was really keen to do was a race called Zegama. Salomon put this race on as part of their Golden Trail Series — it's limited, quite hard to get into, I think it's 500 spots maybe each year, there's a ballot system, and I found a bit of a loophole to get over there and run it. The unique part about this race — it's a marathon-distance trail race, someone's going to catch me on this, but let's just for argument's

[36:16] sake say there's over 5,000 vertical metres in it. It's a tough race, it's over four hundred — well, it takes hours, the best in the world go there and run it. But the uniqueness of it is that up through the mountains, all the different villages come out and line the mountain like a Tour de France race. I'll put this up on my socials if no one's seen it, but literally you're running up a single line, let's say a mile high up a mountain trail, with people either side of you the whole way. Cool, it's cool.

[36:46] It's the one race I'd always seen on socials and thought, I've got to get there one day. That's so cool. So I got there, went like — well, got to do it. So, okay, you've gone Japan with your steps, now you've gone Spain with your Tour de France type vibe, third — we're going to jump now over to South America. This does sound like an opportunity for you to just brag about the places you've raced, by the way. This list, I'm enjoying it, but I'm just saying — but you'll notice Australia, we've got a space here. Oh, Australia isn't in my top

[37:17] three, there's no event in Australia that's in my top three. Tell us about South America. South America — Gigantes de Rio, and you'll like this one because I was actually in a team, Ky Hurst came with me. Legend. So your new best — Ky hasn't agreed to that friendship yet, but he doesn't know it, he's going to be sick of me very soon. So we went over — Gigantes de Rio was a relay race in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It started with Ky swimming in the ocean, and in the middle of

[37:48] the swim he had to get out and do a cliff dive. Why not, that's why, why not, why not. We had a mountain biker, Sid Taberlay, our Olympic mountain biker at the time — he rode up literally to the Christ the Redeemer statue, rode around it, up the steps, down the steps, and handed over to a hang-glider, Johnny Durand. He jumped off, and the idea was he was meant to fly around Christ the Redeemer, but the wind wasn't working for him that day. He landed on Ipanema Beach, and

[38:20] then handed to me to finish this race off. What did I have to do — a soft sand 21-kilometre run. They handed me the lead of this race by minutes ahead, five to six minutes, and I thought, I should just walk this in. A South African guy, good marathon runner, a little whippet, I don't know how quick he'd go, but he was mowing down this big white Aussie guy, me, no shoes, running.

[38:52] We ran up Ipanema onto Copacabana Beach, had to run the length of Copacabana and come back. I saw him at the turn at Copacabana Beach, within a minute or two of me, so the last 4K I'm trying to sprint down Copacabana Beach. I'd just come off my honeymoon, done no training, they'd flown us halfway around the world to do this race. Anyway, we won by about 400 metres. I was going to say, I was trying not to jump in and ruin the

[39:24] story — I was like, no, I won, we won, we won. Not all me, the boys gave me a great lead, but mate, that's an event that I don't think will ever be surpassed. Gigantes de Rio, with the hang gliding and the cliff dive, doesn't sound like it's for everybody, probably. Not for everyone, no, it's pretty hard to field a team for that one — you need a mate who can swim, a mate who can ride down a load of steps on a mountain bike, and a mate who can hang glide. The hang glide's probably the barrier to entry for that

[39:56] race, I'd have thought. A hundred percent. So there you go, those are my three races. Awesome, we need an Aussie race in there. Can I flag something — listening to you talk about that, I don't think it quite fits the criteria, because it's not a straight-up run, it's more of a relay. I'd put City2Surf and Cole Classic in there. I'm going to disagree, it's an iconic race, it's an iconic race, yeah, but the premise — we came off the back of the Handlebar Supercross.

[40:28] That's true. Well, hold on, you just told us a story about a race in Brazil with people hang gliding, that's out there — what's so unique about City2Surf and Cole Classic? That's what I'd throw back at you. Well, yeah, you're right, it's almost a bit like the AFL Grand Final in a sense, because Australia's mainly the only country in the world that really does surf lifesaving as a full-time sport. I know other countries participate, but it's kind of like the AFL Grand

[41:01] Final in a sense, it's the surf lifesaving grand final as a race. Well, I know we're going to leave this to later, but it's probably a good time — you have the unique race here in Australia that we talk about. Oh yes, the beer mile. To me, that's unique. Okay, well, let's talk about this, because I got a message from Jack, a big fan of the podcast who listens on his long run, asking if we could discuss the beer mile on

[41:32] the podcast, and I said absolutely. So for those unaware, the beer mile is essentially what it sounds like — you run a mile, 1,600 metres, around a 400-metre track, but at the beginning of every lap you scull a beer. So you start the race by sculling a beer, run 400 metres, and by the end of it you'll have run four laps of a 400-metre track and sculled a beer at the beginning of every lap. Have you ever done one? I've never done one, but I do think this a hundred percent ticks the

[42:04] criteria of a unique running race. Why wouldn't — why haven't you done one? I've never done one either. Okay, well, that's good to know. Why haven't I done one? Just time and place. Okay, mate — up here on the northern end of the Gold Coast they run the — I think they call themselves Norths, pretty simple run club, some bloody good runners — they run a beer mile each year.

[42:35] Right, so Benny Wilders, who I run with a fair bit, he's always been trying to rope us in to get there, he runs it each year. There's always — I'll tell you what I've always heard about the beer mile, and it's a bit of a reservation — no one can ever agree on the rules. What do you mean, rules are simple? Yeah, but in today's world of beer, zero beers, mid-strength beers, heavy beers — did you really chug the whole beer, or hold it up, or spit it out —

[43:07] there's always something going on. God, that might sound boring. No, I think if you start digging into the beer mile, it's — so, do you know what the world record is? I can imagine it's pretty quick — what do you think it is? Okay, so what would you guess, say — 1.6K's a mile, 15 minutes? It's a good guess, it's a good guess. The current world record for the beer mile is 4:28, so for those playing along at home, that's about two-minutes-thirty pace, running-wise, that's sharp,

[43:42] yeah, sharp. Think of the mile as four minutes, that's one minute per lap, one minute for a 400 — this is good running, it's great running to break a four-minute mile, it's very quick, and then they've chugged four beers on top of it. So the current record-holder is Canadian Corey Bellemore, three-time world champion, he's probably more by now — I'm looking this up on Wikipedia — 4:28, that's his world record, set in 2021. The female world record is 5:43, Shelly Houlihan owns that

[44:15] record. Were you angling on something here, to go and do one? I think we need to do one. Okay, I think we need to do one, maybe over the Christmas break here. It'd be interesting to know when Norths do this. Let's find out — right, that's the way, let's investigate. You've got some homework now, you need to find out — speak to your friends at Norths about when the beer mile is, because I want to do it, if only to benchmark myself. Fair enough. So now, when Jack asks about the beer mile —

[44:46] Jack's theory was Australia would be uniquely positioned to breed world champions at this, maybe. But ultimately, running is pretty accessible and beer drinking is pretty accessible, so I'd say we're in no better place than anyone. We don't have a lock on beer drinking. I understand, exactly, I think the Germans would probably have a thing to say about that too, and the Irish, and the Americans and Canadians by the sounds of it. And ultimately you don't actually have to be a prolific beer drinker, because you're only drinking four beers, you just

[45:17] need to be able to drink them fast. This will show our age a little bit, maybe it won't — have you heard about the Guinness split-the-G thing? Yeah, the idea of your first sip of the Guinness to see if you can split the G on the glass. What a trend, and the fact that Guinness sales have taken off again because of this, it's gone viral, it's a drink of the — I saw a great idea briefly

[45:48] scrolling through socials — I saw someone pitch, I'll apologise, I think it was the Kick It Forward boys, we used some of their audio, I think one of them suggested the idea of Guinness bringing out a glass with multiple split-the-G markers on it, so the idea is you're playing the split-the-G game three or four times per drink. Just another great merch opportunity, I'd have thought. You can tell I haven't spent enough time in pubs lately,

[46:19] because that was news to me the other day. Guinness is beautiful. Going back to the beer mile — in short, I wouldn't do it with Guinness. What beer would you choose? You'd just be going a Great Northern, I'd have thought, fair, pretty gassy. The old Northern's like a — why, what would you go with? Look, I'm not talking from experience here, but I'm thinking one of the ales, less gas, easier to scull.

[46:50] Look, if anyone out there has done a beer mile, I'm sure there are a lot better experts, throw us your tricks and tips, because Courtney's going to explore this with Norths and we're going to participate next time they're doing it, or maybe we just host our own over the break, we'll invite a few people, there's a couple I'd be able to drag in. Absolutely, he'd be up for this. So maybe if Norths doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon, maybe we'll host our own. But if anybody's got tricks and tips for the beer mile, send them through and

[47:20] this is something we'll keep on the back burner. I want to propose a thought experiment to you, Courtney Atkinson. Alright, Liam, I am putting you in charge of World Athletics. You're in charge, right. I've been fired from the Olympics — you're fired from the Olympics, I've sacked you from running the Olympics, although I do want to speak about something there. You're now in charge of World Athletics. Give me one idea of how you'd grow the sport, or make it more inclusive, or some sort of notion or thing you

[47:53] might do to grow the world of running. Well, Netflix did it — they created Sprint. You like that? I mean, off the back of Tour de France: Unchained, Sprint has done its job — people know the sprinters now around the Olympics, they're releasing the next series, it's great. Let's take that out of the equation, though — the first thing I would do is I'm seeing this trend at the

[48:24] moment of joining running with festivals — you've seen this, kind of similar to the run group with the boombox we've kind of joked about, but think of going for a run, joining a fun run around a track, and there's speakers and music, and then at the end of it your favourite DJ is playing. This is happening — it's not my idea, but I'd lean into that more. I'd lean into that because how you

[48:55] make anything attractive is bringing in the youth, and the youth are loving running at the moment — look at the socials. We need to get them away from the influencer and vanity side of it, and into influencing the track side of it — cross country, track, World Athletics. Imagine if they started putting all their efforts into talking about that. The second thing is parkrun — we've talked about it over and over, how do you get parkrun involved more,

[49:25] the recreational side of parkrun more involved with the competitive side, and the crossover. I didn't expect your ideas to be so well thought out, honestly — I now really want to look further into this idea of festival runs, I think that's a winner. My mind started drifting off to venues and acts — that's great. Can I tell you what they're actually looking at? Okay, so I'm sacking you as —

[49:58] did we just lose the desk? I think the hydraulics on the stool have just popped, and we've almost lost the desk — it's back down, first technical difficulty of the pod, we're back though, it's okay, nobody panic, we're professionals here. Keep that in, don't you dare edit this out. Now I'm sweating, I thought we were going to lose everything. I'm sacking you as the president

[50:28] of World Athletics, and I'm giving Lord Sebastian Coe his job back — famous English runner, people might be familiar with him, might not be. World Athletics are proposing a world treadmill championship. No, no, you're making me cry, mate — they're considering a world treadmill championship in their latest attempt to grow the sport. They're close to signing a partnership with a technology company to develop the virtual running scene.

[51:01] I think — doesn't that already exist? No, but they want to do it — the idea is — but doesn't Whoop, and what was the treadmill brand we talked about, but they're basically now looking at turning that into — there's an idea, right — and the IOC have essentially said that if this gets developed to the point where it could be a medal event, in the same way esports have long been discussed as a potential inclusion at the Olympics, on the track.

[51:32] The idea is that if it gets to a point where — like shoes, if it's accessible globally — it could become a medal event at an Olympic Games, running on a treadmill. That's not what I wanted to hear this morning, that's an awful, absolute awful idea. This is a quote from the IOC's sports director — 'where there is a full physical replication of the traditional sport, the door is open, and we are governed by the respective international federation.'

[52:02] So basically they're saying, if the 1500 metres can be done on a treadmill, then why not, or if the marathon can be done on a treadmill, then why not. I mean, are they thinking, in the future, hopefully we're not going to be shut down enough that we're going to have to do everything virtual? Well, the thinking behind it, to explain the logic a little, is that people go to gyms and run on treadmills, so if they can create a world around that, well, they're

[52:32] targeting those people. So the idea, I think, behind any of these marketing initiatives, is they're trying — your idea about that — they're trying to bring more people into the sport. So they've looked at how many people go to the gym and do cardio, and that's who they think they can attract. The reality is, someone running at a high level on a treadmill in a gym is also running outside, so all you're doing is again saturating the sport.

[53:03] You're going to have a treadmill runner and a road runner — I can guarantee you it's a little bit different on the road. When you look at world champions on virtual riding and they output these crazy powers, it's a little bit different, because there's a skill to riding on the road, a technical element to it, riding in a pack and all of that, whereas on a stationary bike it's nearly more like lifting weights, you can just have pure power without any skill. So there's a difference there, but I'd argue you can't fake running on a treadmill — you actually nearly need more, at

[53:36] high speeds on a treadmill you nearly need to have more skill, be more fluent and more efficient than you do on the road. To a degree. The other comparison they've made, like you mentioned with cycling, is rowing, where there's the ergo, right — my rebuttal to that would be that most people will never get in an actual rowing boat in their life. The majority of the world will never have the opportunity to sit in a scull, a single scull, or a four, or an eight,

[54:07] and row. But everyone can jump on an erg if they get to a gym. That's true, that's true. Treadmills — yep, everyone can go on those, but the whole world has access to the possibility of running, right, the front door is the only impediment to you running. It's an awful idea, an absolute awful idea. I love your idea, by the way, I can't stop thinking about the idea of these run festivals — there might be a business opportunity here for

[54:38] you. Well, it's long gone, put it that way, it's happening — the horse hasn't bolted yet. Actually, you know what I saw, in Dubai I think it was, there's a horse track, literally around a hippodrome, a horse racing track, and they just put the speakers out and have it all in the middle. Now, actually, on Friday, after the time of recording, I'm going to a Nike Sunset running session, right, and you're on the Gold Coast for that.

[55:08] Yep, which I think is going to be a bit of a — I don't know all the details, I just got a hit-up, they told you to bring the boombox, just bring the boombox. Now I've got an invitation, so I'm going along, and this is where I'm going to get a chance to trial the Nike Pegasus — so that's why next week I'll be able to come back with a shoe review of the Nike Pegasus, hopefully, and also a debrief on the sunset run session, which I'm looking forward to. I'm not, because generally I'm

[55:38] going in with an open mind, no judgement, but I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like. I've been looking forward to seeing who's there as well — I'm sure Nike can draw in a bit of a Gold Coast crowd. Well, now it all makes sense why you started the gym this week too. Yeah, I'm cutting back, I'm off the beers, just so I can look real cut. Anyway, that's what World Athletics are trying to do, and I look forward to seeing it.

[56:08] While we're talking about global events, you mentioned I'd sacked you as the boss of the Brisbane 2032 Olympics — I want to reinstate you into that position for this one more hypothetical, because the news today is that the bloke who helped lead the clean-up of the Seine in France is going to be presenting in Brisbane this week about making the Brisbane River the centrepiece of the Brisbane 2032 Games,

[56:38] and explaining how they can clean it up and use it for the opening and closing ceremonies and host events in it. Because they had a really good run of it in Paris, didn't they — for those listening who didn't follow what was going on, literally the race that got postponed because the water was too dirty to swim in, after a billion-dollar investment, for both races, and it also affected the Paralympics as

[57:08] well, with numerous reports of athletes getting really sick, and reports of athletes literally swimming into faeces. So this bloke's name is Benjamin Ragnar, I'm probably butchering his pronunciation, apologies Benjamin, but he was educated at the University of Queensland, and he's going to be advocating this week that Brisbane, the government and all the controlling bodies need to

[57:39] make the river a centrepiece — try and make the brown snake blue. The thing that sticks out for me here is that unlike the Seine, that thing is full of bull sharks. That is true, yeah. The other thing about the Brisbane River that you don't really think about is how quick the current is. I've been involved in a few, not sports events, but fun events looking at doing things in the Brisbane

[58:12] River, and the biggest challenge you have doing anything in the water in the Brisbane River is the current. If you put someone in the water, even if you can get them out really quick, the challenge is they'll be 100 metres down the river before you have a chance to get them out. There'll be a few older crew who remember the Goodwill Games, yeah — I can't even remember the year, might have been '92 in Brisbane, I was only young but I can recall the crew racing, I went to watch, and the event

[58:42] was in the river, they swam off South Bank. So it has been done before, and what happened during the races — they started them on a pontoon, they jumped in the water, swam down river, turned at a buoy, and had to swim back up against the current. The problem was the current was so strong, half of them couldn't get around the buoy, so at some point they just cut the course.

[59:12] So then you had a mix of stronger swimmers who got around the buoy and others who didn't, they got on the bikes trying to work out who'd actually finished the swim leg — it was an absolute nightmare. And you saw what happened with the river in Paris, even in those races, I don't think it's a great idea for swimming. I don't mind the idea of making it a feature of the opening ceremony, a hundred percent, but let's just — think of River Fire, how great that goes off on the river.

[59:43] You can do a lot with the river, and it's got to be the centrepiece, but events in the river, no, especially if you're talking triathlon and the marathon swim as well — you're surrounded by some of the best beaches in the world, just use them. Yeah, we've talked about this at length — you've got the Sunny Coast if you want to do it, you've got the Gold Coast if you want to do it, there's space you can swim, you don't have to worry about

[01:00:13] faecal matter and as many bull sharks and all the rest of it. So that's interesting, they're bringing that expertise out — well, at least we can learn from what went wrong. Yeah, exactly, and it wasn't Paris's fault, I suppose, that it rained on the night of the opening ceremony. No. Anyway, we've got one more thing to wrap up — a big nutrition question came through from Carl. Oh, we did, Carl Hayes — yeah, he's been giving us plenty of great feedback on the show, was around triathlon

[01:00:47] originally, but this one's just an interesting one around nutrition. He remembered a race I did — his message was, loving the podcast, well done, got a nutrition question for Courtney: I could be wrong, but I'm sure I remember you at my first 70.3 in Cairns, which I won back in 2013, and you had two Mars Bars taped to your aero bars. Did you actually eat them during the race, or was it some sort of motivational thing? So if you can imagine when you ride a bike, you've got your

[01:01:19] arms out in front of you — so I suppose motivation in a way is, if I finish this race well enough, do I get to eat the two Mars Bars, or do I eat them during the race? The answer is yes, I did. I was going through a phase where I was eating chocolate during long races — when I first got out of Olympic-distance racing, around two hours, and went to the longer distances, I loved eating chocolate, and it worked. We've talked about how, in longer endurance events, people will sometimes eat savoury things and everything else.

[01:01:50] And look, I'm sure no one's eating Mars Bars now, that's — what's that, nearly ten, eleven years on — nutrition's probably come a long way, but sometimes what works for you works. I had this idea that when I was on the bike I couldn't just have gels the whole time, and at the time chocolate, I loved it and it worked, and it's got calories. The problem with that particular one in Cairns, if you think about how hot and humid Cairns is, by the time you take chocolate on your

[01:02:21] handlebars, by the time I got to it, it's basically a gel. It's a gel — literally a squeezy chocolate. So Carl, yeah, the answer is yes, I did consume them. I went through a massive phase, and still up to about five years ago I'd take chocolate with me on my long trail runs — I think I possibly even took one on Six Foot Track, probably one of the best-known trail races, a 46-kilometre trail race in the Blue Mountains, one of the most traditional races. I can remember taking a Mars Bar

[01:02:53] on that one with me. Hey, do what works for you, that's the takeaway if you're thinking about nutrition — try stuff, find what works for you, and if it works for you, stick with it. Google isn't the answer for everything, experts aren't the answer for everything — if you find something that works for you as a runner or a triathlete, keep doing it. Some of the — I've seen some, again a bit of hearsay in articles — around what do you call it,

[01:03:25] icing sugar. Yeah, so some of the best women trail runners in the world go to icing sugar. Look, in the end, sugar is sugar to a degree — yes, there are certain mixes that have been scientifically put together to perform better, but in the end it's the sugar and calories that count, and whichever way your body can take that on, or whatever's the nicest way to take it on, I'd say go for it. Just going back — whenever

[01:03:58] you bring up a performance of yours historically, I'm going to Google it on the fly because your memory is crap — 2013 Ironman 70.3 in Cairns, you did win. I did win, oh, thanks. Do you remember who came second, who you beat by less than a minute? No idea. Brad Kahlefeldt. Okay, so I went to a few Olympics with Brad. Interestingly enough, your time was

[01:04:29] better than the open relay time as well, so you beat the team too. You first crossed the line comfortably, came out of the water first by the looks of it, 23:15, certainly amongst the podium finishers, first out of the water. You had a really good ride — that's where you gapped Brad, put three minutes on him on the bike, rode a 2:11:52, and I think you probably knew you were going to win it because you ran a 1:16:34, and Brad caught you by two minutes

[01:05:00] on the run, running 1:14, which isn't too bad up there because it's always hot. And Tim Reid came in third. Tim Reid, yeah — budgie smugglers. Have you ever, do you know the brand Budgie Smugglers? Well, I don't know if he — I don't know if he runs his marathons in budgie smugglers or Dick Tikoks, but he runs marathons in them, he's run 2:30 at Gold Coast Marathon. If you — let's get back to running, sure.

[01:05:30] If you've ever seen the Gold Coast Marathon, and I think Tim's done it for the last few years, he runs across the line around 2:30, and he's the guy running in a moustache and Dicky Tikoks. I'm charged, is he not — he was world champion in 70.3, I believe. Oh, there he is, you found the picture. He loves a budgie smuggler, doesn't he. I'm just thinking chafe. Oh, horrible. I'm going to bring up Paddy McNamara, do you know Pat,

[01:06:01] ASICS ambassador, physio, Sydney-based guy — he sets himself up every year at City2Surf and runs a good City2Surf time too, but he sets himself up because there's that iconic image where the photographer's set up at Kings Cross, up near the Coke sign, looking back towards Hyde Park, and Paddy's goal is to be first, be out in front, and he's running in budgie smugglers as well. And I think Gatorade jumped on board with him this year, and

[01:06:32] basically he ran in a pair of Gatorade budgie smugglers, and he was out there again alongside the winners, a bit of ambush marketing. Shout out to anybody — I can always remember running City2Surf a few times, at the front you've got the chicken costumes, the dinosaurs, it's great. Well, look, I think we're about an hour, just ticked over — there's still so much other stuff on our run sheet we didn't get to, but we'll be back. Homework for next week — you need to explore the beer mile with Norths.

[01:07:03] Yep, we need to look into that, and I'm going to come back with hopefully two reviews — a shoe review, but also the Nike Sunset Run review, to tell you what that kind of event, party-type DJ atmosphere is like for a run club, and I'm going to try and bring some technical stuff as well. Oh, you're going — we don't want to go too technical. No, no, I like technical, technical is important. Yeah. Until then, we'll see you next week.