EP 16 - THE TOUGHEST THREE ATHLETES I’VE TRAINED WITH

[00:00] In the Beginning, episode 16, we are back. And Courtney Atkinson, you've got a lot to answer for to start today. You broke the internet! Well, you broke the running part of the internet anyway. Yeah, we've definitely been trending, haven't we? I don't know what it means, but we hit #13 on the Spotify Sports charts — 12 today, actually. I think that's got to do with growth. Yeah, probably picking up a few more listeners. Tell your mates, share the love. We appreciate everybody that has come on board, and the growth

[00:32] that we've seen is in large part because of a bit of a tear you went on last week. Wasn't even a tear, it was just a well-articulated point. I thought it was just a left-field comment, but no, it definitely struck a nerve, didn't it — the comment you made that in the running world at the moment there's this trend and lean towards people talking about their kilometres, and how many kilometres they're doing, and how important it is to continuously be focusing on your kilometres.

[01:02] And you basically went on to say your body doesn't know kilometres, your body knows time and intensity. Now that little reel has gone nuts. How have you found the feedback? Because I think it's been very interesting to see — it was in large part celebrated, but then the critics have started to come out just a bit. Yeah, it's interesting how initially it's super positive and then it's nearly like when something gets big enough, everyone's got to have their

[01:34] two cents worth, don't they? Whether it's good or bad, or maybe bad just for the sake of having an opposing view, which is totally fine. I mean, this is probably in part why I steered clear of this whole world as much as I can in my athletic career, because it was just a left-field comment — we didn't plan that, I was just talking liberally, off the cuff, and I still stick by it: your body doesn't know kilometres.

[02:06] It just knows the time and the intensity that equals the kilometres. And we all shouldn't get hung up necessarily on K by K. It's been interesting looking at the comments — as far as I can tell, there's a lot of amateur runners who found that a really encouraging piece of wisdom. It was a really nice pat on the

[02:36] back for a lot of people who clearly feel a bit of pressure about it. One of the comments in there talks about how Strava is a blessing and a curse, because it's great for all the reasons we love it — it allows you to share your training and look at other people's training — but it does have that social media element of "look what everyone else is doing." You can't help but compare yourself, keep up with the Joneses, and then you find yourself spiralling into "I'm not keeping up with all these other people"

[03:06] from a per-kilometre, per-week perspective. And then next thing you know, you're not enjoying your running because it's become a competition. Now, I'll jump to the end of the show — stay around for this, because I've actually got, I suppose, a theory or the fundamentals of running that should help keep the fun in it and get away from that. It's not mine, it's actually something that really resonated with me when I read it, so hang around at the end and we'll go through that. But I agree with you — if kilometres or Strava or whatever it is is taking away

[03:38] from the actual enjoyment and the process — I think that's the key, the process of running, the process of improving, and everything you get out of it should be enjoyable. Everyone can have their own opinion on what they reckon is the best way for them to run, but enjoyment should be part of that. I'd say if you've found yourself — if you're one of those people that saw what Courtney had to say last week about the constant comparison over kilometres, and you found that weighing on you — go find yourself a great jump-off from Strava for a bit.

[04:09] Just get off Strava. Yep, just get off Strava and run for yourself. And the other thing, and I've done this a couple of times: run without your watch. Don't track your run, go out and just run. It's a hard one, mate, because if it's not on Strava, did it even happen? That's the dilemma we face. This is the full circle of technology, but life as well — I mean, how many people these days, if they didn't take a photo of themselves having a beer at the

[04:41] airport, did they even go on holiday? It gets back to that question of who are you doing it for? Everyone can do it for whatever reasons they want, as long as they're running and I'm happy. But look, so everybody — appreciate all the comments — everybody that's jumped on board off the back of that episode last week, welcome. We're having a lot of fun here and we don't take it too seriously. Keep the conversations going though, because they're great, we love the interaction, as long as it stays happy and positive, and I guess non-aggressive.

[05:15] We don't want to go down — I don't think it was gonna get aggressive, right? Hey, happy New Year, buddy. Yeah, happy New Year! It's great. Off the back of that conversation, I reckon we get talking about — happy New Year, and I know Australia Day is coming up later in the month, and I saw something that really resonated with me. It was on Escape, the travel/tourism website, and it was about hilarious maps of Australia and how you can divide Australia up. There's the Google autocomplete map, like "why is Queensland backward," "why is New South Wales important,"

[05:46] "why is Tassie cold," "why is South Australia" — you know, all these funny things that come out at this time of year. One that got me was actually a Sydney map, called the Birkenstock Border. They divide up Sydney — northern Sydney down through Botany Bay, out to central Sydney, and then Cronulla in the south — by what kind of open footwear people wear. So north of Sydney they've got Birkenstocks, and in central and western Sydney,

[06:17] the inner west, they've got a pair of slides — Adidas in this case, or Versace, whatever you want to pick. And then obviously they've got the flip-flops or thongs — pluggers, whatever you want to call them — the surfy types down south. Now this resonated with me because I thought, if you did Queensland on this map, southeast Queensland or central Queensland, what would it look like for us? Because it's definitely different, and I'm surprised Crocs don't make an appearance on this. Yeah, well, I don't know if Sydney is very Crocs.

[06:49] I don't think it's Croc territory. I think Crocs is more a Queensland-based thing. The easiest way to blanket it — I'm dividing by beers. North of Brisbane, Great Northern; Brisbane itself, Fourex; south of Brisbane, XXXX Bitter. That's what my Birkenstock map for Queensland would look like. People disagree about shoes, mate — you just brought in beers. Oh God.

[07:19] That works though — Bitter's in the north, and the well, you know, the hard-to-you-by-the-home surf. It's in your suburb, exactly — in Currumbin, and Mick and Joel and Bede and whoever else was in on it. Kerr — that's the big beer down south. Fourex is, you know, Brisbane's still the home of the Milton Mango. And up north I'd say Great Northern rules. Yeah, I was born in the north, that's probably why I prefer a choice. Of course, I love a Great Northern. But the reason?

[07:50] The other thing this Birkenstock Border thing got me thinking about — I bought a pair of Birkenstocks for the first time in, oh God, twenty years I reckon, however long they've been around, under duress. I don't like Birks. What's your beef with them, exactly? This exact map is my beef with the Birkenstock, honestly — I'm literally wearing a pair as we speak. I can see that. And when you were in Sydney, where

[08:20] did you live? I was in Bondi, actually, so I guess that means you're on the normal side, because this line cuts right through the top of Botany Bay. So that's Maroubra, yes — there you go. Yeah, but I bought these Birkenstocks because I'd literally destroyed a couple of pluggers. I had to go on a trip, and I knew I'd be in water a bit, and things — so I went and got a pair of the plastic-style Birkenstocks. And yeah, I've told you I'm a creature of habit, so I've just worn them out and never changed since. I keep wearing them around,

[08:52] but every time I put them on I'm like, "oh man, Birkenstocks." So you're not pro-Birkenstocks — that's just your footwear of choice? I'm not pro-Birkenstocks. However, if you put me on this map, like we just talked about, I'm probably in the north, so I should be pro-Crocs. Yeah, but I'm anti-Crocs as well. But I've got a feeling it's one of those topics where eventually I'm going to come around and eat my own words. Hold on — if you're not wearing your runners, what shoe are you wearing? I prefer bare feet if anything, but at the moment it's

[09:22] Birkenstocks. OK, what about you? I'm wearing a pair of Birkenstocks right now, but I'm a Crocs guy — I've got a pair of Crocs that I absolutely love. And the thing is, I haven't worn pluggers for maybe, I don't think I've worn them for about five years now. I had a really bad experience when I was about eighteen, first year out of high school. I was at university and working at a surf shop in Adelaide, and for maybe two years

[09:56] straight, all I wore at work was Havaianas, because I'm like, I'm getting to go to work in thongs, how good's this? What I then suffered was I got a really nasty case of plantar fasciitis, and the podiatrist I went and saw was like, "well, it's because you're walking around in thongs all day, which gives no support to the arch of your foot and flattens it out." For sure. So that was kind of the beginning of the end of my life in thongs. Sometimes that's just the way it goes. I have to say, I don't know what

[10:26] brand it is, but there's a company that makes those pluggers with arch support — Archies, is it Archies? They're called Archies, yeah. There's a few different ones, and I see a few of the guys rocking around in them to keep the plugger look, but with a bit more support. I've got a stack of sandals in the cupboard next to me — I've got these Japanese-style sandals, but I'm always buying them online, and you can't get the size exactly right. I've got a pair of Reef sandals in the garage, I'll show you after — the family laugh

[10:56] at me for them. They've got Vibram soles, I bought them because they've got that Vibram grip. That's the same rubber trail runners are made of, that's one of the types of grip — anyway, I bought them thinking, if I'm climbing on the trailer, up on the four-wheel drive, getting bikes off, I want something grippy. But they don't fit right, useless, mate — I'm having trouble

[11:26] finding a good one — if you've got a good slide or that type of open shoe you'd recommend, I'd be very appreciative. Just quickly, just to put a bow on this one — what do you reckon has the faster marathon world record, a pair of Birkenstocks or a pair of Crocs? I'm going to say the Crocs, because Crocs have got that sport mode where you flip the back strap up.

[11:56] OK, there isn't much info about Birkenstocks and marathon world records, but the fastest marathon world record in Crocs — I've got the name here — was set at the New York City Marathon last year, 2024. All right, Crocs are flying — Crocs have got a good bit of bounce in them, they're actually a decent shoe. Someone will do this. Oh, they're gonna do it in Crocs.

[12:30] Oh, there we go — that's the 2025 prediction, since we're in the new year: Crocs for the carbon plate. Crocs will come out with a carbon-plated shoe collaboration with, do you know what, Satisfy Running or someone. I'm here for it, send me a pair, I'm there — I'll run the Goldie Marathon in a pair of Crocs if they can find a way to put a carbon plate into them, I am absolutely there for it, I love it. Well, let's keep talking gear for my tech chat. So, some loose ends from last

[13:00] episode — we were talking about watches, and I talked about the Apple Watch having a crash-detection feature, messaging your wife or someone if you've had an incident. But we were talking about whether they're a good watch to wear generally. So we've had some info in from a few of the crew about watches, who've obviously tried more than myself and yourself, 'cause you were basically saying you want the less on your watch, the better — you want a watch that tells you your heart rate, how fast

[13:30] you're going, good GPS data, and that's it — the Holy Grail watch. Oh, and I forgot music downloads — I just want good GPS, laps, heart rate (sorry, chest strap), GPS, and easy ability to play podcasts, Spotify, whatever, on the watch. So Scott Cadbury — sounds like he's an absolute gear head, loves his tech and watches — said he's tried lots of brands: Garmin, Apple, Coros, Polar,

[14:03] Suunto — funny enough, I've actually run for Suunto and Polar as sponsored athlete brands before, so it's not like I haven't tried watches, and that was recently. Suunto was under, I suppose, the larger umbrella brand with Salomon. But they're not — I'm not sure right at the moment whether it's the same company, but Amer Sports controls quite a range — Wilson tennis rackets, Salomon shoes, a whole range, Arc'teryx,

[14:35] OK, didn't know about that — yeah, like a lot of larger conglomerates, they've got a whole bunch of brands under them. It's always helpful — I mean, I just got a new pair of snow goggles I'm about to use — it's great how, when you deal with some of these companies, they're doing more than just running. OK, anyway, let's get back to Scott. "Hey team, love the podcast, listen every Saturday doing my long run.

[15:05] Heard your discussion about watches. He's got a Garmin Fenix 8 at the moment, 2050 bucks — they're not cheap, and they're big watches too. The Apple Watch Ultra, $1300, and he's saying the Apple Watch Ultra he's got is great — full access to Apple Podcasts, Apple Music library, syncs easily with the watch, has the five-dollar-a-month cellular connectivity, so you can actually, without your

[15:35] phone, make calls, send messages, all of that — it's basically a phone on your wrist. So this is — I like it, I mean, I've known this, but I like it, I've just never gone down that route. The downside is the GPS tracks aren't as good as the Fenix, so in the end he uses the Fenix every day as a running watch. OK, that's — I can't do a deep dive on it because my wife has an Apple Watch, and she had the Apple Watch before I got my Garmin.

[16:05] And basically, when I was doing my research into it, the Apple Watch seemed like the better day-to-day functional option, but the Garmin — I've never run with Suunto or Polar or any of those other ones — but the Garmin, this kind of sports-specific smartwatch, seemed like the better choice for everything else, the athletic stuff, the GPS stuff. So we're still, like I said, still looking for this Holy Grail in between. Obviously Apple's got the technology, and our local legend, Brazilian Run at the Evil —

[16:37] if you ever want, you know, we talk a lot about going and trying shoes on, and there's real expertise down at Wild Earth here — if you're on the Gold Coast or in Brisbane, I think Wild Earth have got one out at — there's one in the west, or Burleigh, but no, I think they've got one out at what's the airport place, not Metroplex, Harbour Town — but the equivalent up in Brisbane, DFO — there's one up at DFO in Brisbane. And if you ever want advice in there on running, he's switched on on everything.

[17:09] So he's also said he loves the fact we talk about all brands — even though I run for Salomon, you've got obviously some connections with different brands, but in the end you need to try everything to make the best decision, that's what we're about here. He also said the Apple Watch has the worst GPS and battery life — really good for everything else, but battery life

[17:40] is only one day, so you're charging every day. Suunto he said too — some people call it that — they just released some new watches, okay, so really good adventure watches, but I've never run with those. So he's hoping they've fixed a few of the little problems he had in the past — he used them for a long time and always found he'd get a longer distance reading on his GPS than his Garmin. So if he went out and ran with me, and he was using his

[18:10] Suunto, he'd say he ran a little bit further, he'd always get a bit more bang from his GPS, which was always a good thing too because it means you're running a bit further, quicker. Can I ask quickly about the idea of running as a watch athlete? I know you've explained some of these brands sit under an umbrella brand, but I think about elite athletes as having a shoe sponsor, that makes sense, or an apparel sponsor, that makes sense. The watch thing — is it

[18:43] the same, where they just give you a watch and therefore you're their athlete, or is there a financial agreement in place — how did that work back in the day when you ran for these various watch brands? Well, that comes back to what we've talked about a lot on this podcast, around influencers, professional athletes, semi-professional athletes, and where you stack up in the pile. The professional athletes are getting paid by these companies to run with their watch, promote the watch, do all that, and then

[19:13] through the others, I'd say some professional and semi-professional athletes, or amateurs, are probably getting given product as a deal — they probably never really differentiate that to their audience, no one knows what's going on behind the scenes. And then influencers — to be honest, I think you'll find some of them are getting paid to promote it because they've got such good reach, and then a lot of influencers are probably just getting a product or a discount, yeah,

[19:44] but we don't know that. So that's why you've got to be really careful when you're watching socials or looking at advice, you don't know what the motivation is behind it. It's interesting you talk about that, because this is my second Forerunner, Garmin Forerunner, I've bought — full disclosure, I've bought both my Garmins, paid full price for them too. But the reason I bought them was because at the time, I

[20:15] needed a watch, and it had nothing to do with influencers or athletes having this watch. So why did you buy that Garmin? I bought it because I was signing up for Noosa, I was in the midst of doing Noosa Triathlons, I was running, and I wanted a sports watch that could track this information for me — track my runs, give me pace updates and all the rest of it — and the decision-making point for me was these tech websites. I'd go to a tech website

[20:48] — it had nothing to do with individuals — I'd go to these tech websites that independently evaluated these watches alongside one another, not to the extent of a Choice.com or anything like that, but tech websites that would go, "this is Garmin's new Forerunner," or "this is Suunto's new whatever," "this is the Apple Watch," and here's how they compare against one another. And I'd sit there, and it had nothing to do with what individuals were running with, it was purely an independent assessment from a tech angle, looking at features and everything else, which is great if

[21:21] you're wanting all the bells and whistles. But no one's ever just talking about what do you actually need in the watch. So that's where I always come back to the basics — there's that old saying, if you're going to buy something, wait a month and see if you actually really need it. You know, you purchase something, you're online, you're on Amazon, and bang, you buy it now. Wait a month, and if you still want it, buy it then. I kind of backtrack that and think about a watch and go, okay, in the last

[21:53] month, what have I actually used on my watch? What have I actually done with it, and what information did I take off it, and then go, that's what I actually need in a watch. As you say that, I've just jumped into my favourites, and in my favourites I have Run, Golf, and Breathwork. And I used golf the other day, because this watch has the ability to

[22:24] be like a range finder to an extent — not hard and fast, not super accurate, but useful. And then there are all these other widgets on this watch — track run, treadmill, indoor bike, triathlon, indoor walk, and all these things I will never use on this watch, ever. And then you've got the new ones telling you "your fitness went up 4%," beeping at you while you're running, "here's a suggested session," and you pretty much just

[22:56] dismiss, dismiss, dismiss. All of that information in there is costing you money and you're not using it. It's funny you say that, because every time I go for my run with this, it takes my sleep data and all the other training I've done, and it suggests a session, and I dismiss that session ninety-five times out of a hundred. And I feel like my watch gets offended, because after I dismiss it, it says, "do

[23:28] you still want future suggestions?" And it's just — I feel bad, and I go, "ohh yeah, yeah, keep supplying them to me, I paid for it, keep giving me the information and I'll just get rid of it." But yeah, anyway, that's a good bit of watch chat, we haven't done a proper watch chat before, that was nice. So thanks to the boys — who else? Well, there's Sam Y, a big friend of the podcast, he wanted to follow up on the question of AI training and ChatGPT providing those training plans.

[24:00] I think this is good, I like this — so one technique he's been using with ChatGPT in particular is to follow up his original prompt by asking "where did you source that from?" If you missed it, we talked about the idea of AI being able to provide running programmes. Sam's technique is, when he asks the AI to provide him a running plan, he then prompts it by saying "where did you source this," and he can go and check the source and see if it's legit or not — which is an interesting little hack.

[24:31] Or does ChatGPT just freak out and make something up? I've never done it, but it's an interesting prompt if you don't want to take an AI's training programme on face value and want to do a bit more of a deep dive on it. I haven't done it, but it's an interesting test if you're one of those people using AI to provide your training programme — maybe just jump in and ask it where it got that from. Anyway, cool, interesting. Well, before — yeah, so then, running resolutions.

[25:03] Happy New Year again, yeah! Happy New Year. We said we'd shout out — we asked for people to send in their running resolutions for this year. And we'd asked a few people to throw theirs in, so we'd give them a shout. We'll go half and half here for you. So I'll go: Dexter — we've talked about him a little bit here, he won HYROX Melbourne. Wow. He's right in that sweet spot — I reckon he could run in the

[25:34] Clydesdale category — is he a big unit? Big unit. He ran a 2:46 marathon — okay, here's the story — ran a 2:46 marathon at the Gold Coast last year with a hydration vest on. What? Yeah, big fella, big strong fella. You reckon he'd be a Clydesdale and he's running 2:46, 100%. That's just one of those big guys, he's a strong one. HYROX — he's gone sub-1:17 for the half,

[26:08] yeah, sub-1:17 for the half, that's good running, that's real good running. He's a legit, serious guy. So from that, into Brett Quayle, who says he's just trying to be more consistent and injury-free. Perfect. What I'd say to that is I reckon Brett's got to funnel that down a bit more — being more consistent is fine, being injury-free is a nice idea, but what are you actually doing? Well, let me ask you this, Courtney —

[26:38] I'm Brett, I want to be more injury-free in 2025 — give me two simple things I could do, not even three, just two simple, generic things that will help me be more injury-free. Number one: activate before running, figure out some exercises you can do to activate your muscles before you get out for your morning run — that'd be number one. And number two would be probably go and see someone and

[27:08] get some strength work, nothing over the top — go get some professional help. There you go, Brett — be more injury-free, activate before you run, then go find someone who can help you with some basic strength work. I like that one. Oh, well — Quirk. Cool, so Bryce Quirk, one of my best mates — races across the globe in triathlon, so his son trains for AFL, and his goal here is 9:55 for the 3K. Some quick maths on that,

[27:38] so he's running roughly three twenty-second laps, which for AFL standard, junior AFL standard, when they do their two or three K time trials, that's really good going. So, Greg — this is Greg from BSc, what is it, Body Science, or Body Protein — oh well, they've got everything. Yeah, they've got everything, and I like this, his running resolution for 2025 is "years to start." I love that, great resolution. I've been running into Greg —

[28:10] one of the guys who founded BSc — Shebie is his nickname, shout out to Shebie — he was one of the guys who I saw as the bread and butter of BSc when they began. I don't know all that much about the company, but he was doing the protein stuff and, at the same time, compression wear, your compression tights — that was trending really big then.

[28:41] And Shebie — locally down here at Miami, they had a Gold Coast triathlon shop that used to exist just down the road, just behind, just down at the Miami swimming pool. Next door, Shebie used to make car seat covers — sheepskin ones — I don't know if he sewed them himself or however they were making them. Do you remember the old lambswool sheepskin seat covers? Right, so that was his trade.

[29:12] Greg, I'd love him to tell this story one day. But yeah, from my understanding, he literally brought that over and started doing the BSc leggings and compression garments, and he's been there ever since. But I've seen him out in the forest lately, back on his mountain bike trying to get fit — I know both of them go off and do activities, and I love that, getting themselves fit. Good on you, Greg, that's his goal for 2025, "years to start," well done. And then the last one we'll give a quick shout out to — and there were lots that came through.

[29:43] So good on everybody getting out there, and for those of you who kept your running resolutions quiet, shout out to you as well. But Reedy, a friend of the pod, his running resolution for 2025 — he's qualified for Boston and is shooting for sub-three hours at Boston, which will be a good run. But he's also, and this is exciting, on board to pace the 3:20 bus for the London Marathon, which will be an amazing experience. So the 3:20 bus — if you ever hear someone talk about a "bus" in pacing terms, they're talking

[30:14] about the pacemaker, wearing the balloon — people with the balloon on the Goldie run with the balloon or a flag, it's essentially like a tour leader with a big umbrella. So he's going to be pacing the 3:20 pace group at the London Marathon, which is awesome — perfectly capable of running a 3:20 marathon. Have you ever paced for any race? I know you haven't run marathons, but have you ever paced anything like that? Not really, bit of a — back in the earlier days of the Suns I used

[30:44] to pace one or two of their pre-season 2K time trials, that's about it. But for something like that, as a resolution, there's a bit of pressure that comes with it. Because there's a lot of people — twenty minutes slower than his PB too — and a lot of people are going to be relying on Reedy at that race to get them to their goal, and Reedy can talk, so you'd better hope you're running next to him. But now, talking about Reedy — you're obviously good mates, sub-three

[31:17] yourself, sub-three-hour goal here at Boston, so there's a bit of competition there with you two. No, there's no — could it be a Reedy versus Liam Flanagan run-off? That's insulting to Reedy, because he's run under three hours multiple times now, and we're in different categories. But look, if we lay it down — he's probably hoping Reedy blows up at Boston Marathon and doesn't get his

[31:47] target — and I get a minor goal out of it. There you go, anyway, alright. So what have you been up to this week, Liam? I know — starting the new job at Triple M on the Gold Coast. When does it start? The 13th, first day on air with the new crew, Spider and Liesl. We're on air in two weeks, the 13th, a Monday. So does the 13th start coincide with school going back? It doesn't, school won't be back yet. Is that just a ratings-period start,

[32:17] or? You're asking questions I should know the answer to, but I don't — look, ultimately, in layman's terms, the radio ratings periods are different depending on what market you're in. Basically, it's time to get back on air, the year has begun, people are back to work, back into their morning routine, and it's time for us to get on air and start talking to the people of the Gold Coast with this new radio show.

[32:48] It's interesting — I was talking to someone about it the other day, I've got a similar feeling. Shout out to King of the Coast, Luke Bradnam — Channel 9's Luke Bradnam, I played golf with him the other day, we were at Royal Pines. And actually, here's a little segue — Luke's about fifty-two now, and he's in great shape for a fifty-two-year-old. He talked to me as we were playing golf, and I'm sure he won't mind me sharing this, because he's talked about it openly before, but he credits endurance sport with where he is now in life.

[33:20] He found it late — he's now, I think he's aiming for the Gold Coast Marathon, which he's going to compete in this year, and it'll be his 25th marathon ever. I didn't realise that. He's done two Ironmans, and he's a huge advocate for endurance sport, and he's making a commitment to get back into it — he's been out of it a little while, but he wants to get back and run the Goldie Marathon this year. And the coach who was coaching him when he was doing the Ironmans and stuff is a bloke called — I think

[33:52] his name was Greg, and apologies Greg for not knowing your full name — but the other day he messaged Luke and said, "mate, give this a listen, I think you'll find it useful and informative," and it was this podcast, and Luke literally wrote back and said, "I'm driving to Royal Pines to play golf with Liam this afternoon." I was talking to Luke about the new show, and I described it — to pivot it back to running — as the feeling I had before the half marathon

[34:24] down in Adelaide. I talked to you about this, that as I drove down to that race, I was shooting for a sub-90, and I wasn't nervous about running the distance, I was nervous about running the distance at that pace. But it was an excited nervousness, and when I finished and achieved it, it was amazing. I've got a very similar feeling about this show. I'm really excited because I know what an amazing opportunity it is, and I think we've got all the tools we need to succeed. And I'm nervous because it's

[34:55] something new — I've never done breakfast radio before, I've filled in in patches, but never done a long stint. And I see this as being a five-to-ten-year job for me now, so I'm really excited, I'm nervous, but I just can't wait. What I saw on Instagram — what's the show going to be called? Triple M Gold Breakfast, Liesl Jones, Liam and Spider. Well, that's a mouthful. That's simpler than what we called this show, isn't it? Just Liesl and Liam, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[35:26] So, from the 13th, if you're Gold Coast based, 92.5 Triple M Gold will be on air from the 13th, 5am. And I'll officially be switching into pro hours as a runner — my school run up to Southport is generally around 7:30 to 8, so I'm expecting a good segment to listen to. That's peak audience — most people are in cars around then doing that school drop-off, so you'll be getting good ratings. I'm open to consult over here if you ever need.

[35:56] I only charge by the minute. You and I have had conversations though, and your insights into this area are genuinely helpful — you know the Gold Coast better than most, because you were raised here and you spend a lot of time running around it, you know where the high-traffic points are, genuinely useful inside knowledge. Maybe I can get a job as the traffic reporter. There we go, I'll tell you what, it'd be a negative traffic report every morning at the moment. You can give us the trail report — trail report, there you go.

[36:27] How's your running week gone? Huge, so much going on this week, it's just that time of year where everyone's around. I think I said this last episode — so, New Year's Eve morning, does it make sense? Yep, so on New Year's Eve morning we did the Gold Coast Run Co thing — Jacko Stolo, who runs the more, I suppose, age-group side of the Gold Coast

[36:57] Run Co, brings everyone together for the one morning each year, and they do a relay — twenty-five lots of four hundreds. How was it? It was hot, it was hard, it was everything I expected. I've got a question for you though, Liam, because you got an invite to this and you made an excuse — I won't say the excuse, but you made an excuse, and then I saw you go and take a better invite down at the Alley.

[37:27] No, no, no, no — you're getting your days mixed up. Oh, okay. No, no, no, it wasn't that — I messaged you the morning of the 25x400 session, and I really — I woke up and I really wanted to be there, but I messaged you because I felt a bit of a hotspot, a sore spot in my soleus, my calf, the day prior when I was doing a bit of running. And I thought, oh, that's the

[37:57] spot — that's the injury that kept me out of the Gold Coast Marathon two years ago, I've had some trouble with that. And I woke up, had a little flex of the toes, a little jump around, and that hotspot was still there. And I made the very mature decision to message you and say, "hey, calf's not good." I'm joking — I know you're joking, it's the right decision, 100%. But I did think — I then saw you at the Alley doing a surfing session with the crew. You're like, yeah, yeah.

[38:30] It's one of those times when you get a better invite and you're like, am I going to make an excuse? I promise you I did not — I stayed very much in bed and looked after the leg. But I was very disappointed, because it looked like a really fun session. It was good — we took an Esky down with seventy-plus Red Bulls in it, and I came back with seven. There you go, lots of friends, very popular. But no, it was great — the thing is, we had, you know, Matt Hauser, one of the best triathletes

[39:02] in the country right now, at the last Olympics. So you've got Olympians, and you've got Jacko's elite squad — Tim Vincent and guys like that, top-ten marathon runners in the country at the moment — so you've got all that eliteness there, and then you've got the amateur group running along as well. There's the store we see down at the Spit most Tuesdays — a couple of footy guys, like Lucky Weller, turned up, and a few of us — it's just an all-in and everyone's having a good time. We do it on a two-minute cycle, so it's not easy. So where were you running? I was generally probably twenty to thirty metres behind

[39:37] the front guys, just looking after myself a bit. But it was hot. What this did get me thinking about, though, was because we had the variance of everyone there, and I was thirty metres off the back thinking, I want to be up there, I want to be running with the guys — it got me thinking about people I'd trained with in the past, and who were the hardest trainers I've come across. Because in triathlon, when I was training around the Olympic Games, the uniqueness of

[40:08] it is you're swimming, biking, running, so you get to mix in a lot of different sports. The three guys I reckon I've been exposed to who were the hardest — and it's no coincidence that their results reflected their training — the first guy I'm going to say is Ken Wallace. Ken Wallace, Olympic gold medallist in the K1, I'm gonna say 1000, pretty sure it's the 1000.

[40:39] Now, Ken I never could paddle with, because I can't sit in a K1 to save myself — I can paddle an intermediate boat alright, but I'd fall out of a K1 into the shark-infested canal, so that's not a good idea. I never saw him in his actual training environment in the kayak, but what I did get to do is race across Tasmania in an adventure race — the Mark Webber Adventure Race — with Ken. We got put together as a team. He'd never run more than ten kilometres in one go in his life.

[41:11] He'd ridden some bikes, but we literally just went and got him a mountain bike the week before this race. For people who don't know Ken Wallace, he looks like an upside-down triangle — shoulders that just go out like that, big fella. I mean, I'm not surprised he'd never run more than ten Ks because he's a big unit. We went down and raced this five-day adventure race — each day we were out there for eight hours or so, long endurance days — and one particular day, he was just an animal. Never whinged,

[41:43] never gave up. I was dragging him around on a bungee cord half the time. But there's this one particular day I remember, we had to climb up — we were around Cradle Mountain — and we'd ridden up this climb for probably a good hour, and he was at the front of the pack with all the elites, giving it some talk. And then it was a sixteen-K trail loop, and he'd never run sixteen K. I've got him on the bungee, running him hard because we're trying to keep up, and we're doing alright.

[42:13] At one stage he tripped while on the bungee and went flat down. When I rolled him over, there was a little stick sticking out of the ground — they'd cut through the trees on the side of the path with a machete, and as they cut them, they'd left the stumps sticking up. I thought I'd killed Ken — I'm not joking, I was waiting to see the blood. I thought I'd killed Ken, it's not funny, but — well, it was, you know the famous line from South Park, "oh my God, they killed Kenny" — that's just what jumped into my

[42:44] head there. Yeah, I thought I'd killed Ken. Anyway, he got up, didn't miss a beat — once we worked out it hadn't gone through, he'd just grazed it, he got up and on we went. He'd been at it for years, a surf lifesaver, he just grinded for years — that's number one, Ken Wallace. Number two — this is good, by the way, all these people I've trained with — it's a bit of a tough-man party, or tough-woman party, I don't know yet, well, mostly it was men I got to

[43:16] train with, so apologies to the ladies on this one, there'll be three guys. Michael Shelley — Mike went on to win the Commonwealth Games gold medal in the marathon. Mike did all his training pretty much on his own once he got into his marathon days — obviously hard training, long training, mostly on the Gold Coast, in the heat. I'd been running through Nerang with him, and look, I could never keep up with Mike the whole time, I was always hanging on as long as I could. But I believe I was at least company for him on a lot

[43:48] of his longer stuff, and it worked for me too. Most weeks he'd just be dropping me, and then on a bad day he'd be throwing up on the trails and just keep going — he was relentless. I was telling someone else this the other day — when we'd finish, say if we were doing a twenty-eight-K run in the forest through the hills, I'd get to the turn and always need a break, always need to go to the toilet. I had to time my toilet stop

[44:20] before the turn, because Mike wouldn't stop. That's probably why — no compromises. And it finally paid off, no compromises — he was just an animal. That's number two. And then number three, who I never got to train with — I grew up with Grant Hackett in the pool, though I never trained with him when he was at his peak, but I'd be training a few lanes over at Denis Cotterell's squad, and he was relentless as well. The sessions they were

[44:54] pumping out in that era — post-Kieren Perkins, pre the new-age-of-suits era — the benchmark was to swim a one-minute hundred in repetition, because that would set you up to break the fifth, if you could do twenty-one hundreds on the cycle under a minute, that would set you up to swim under fifteen minutes in the 1500. And I just watched him do it — he was in that pool for years, we started when he was eight years old down there, and he obviously went on

[45:26] to achieve great things, but he was the third guy — I was never quick enough to actually be in his lane, it'd be every so often Denis would let me jump in the back of the four-hundreds, but it was mainly just watching them. There you go, three guys — I could sit here and listen to you talk about these guys for days, because when I go running with you and I talk to people about the fact I go for trail runs with Courtney Atkinson, you very patiently wait for me — you don't have the Michael Shelley attitude towards

[45:57] our runs, otherwise I'd be stuffed. I love hearing about it, and you just mentioned three blokes who all achieved success, but it's that attitude towards training — I'm too compassionate, mate, they'll wait up for you. That's the reason I never won gold. I'm not taking responsibility for your performances in Beijing and London, mate, I didn't know you then. Yeah, true, true. It was interesting, because I was going for a run this

[46:29] morning and thinking about resolutions, and the ones some people had sent through, and the idea of goal-setting — how at this time of year, for your average person, your average punter, it's a time where they make a resolution and say, "my goal is to run this time, or this distance, or just to start." But for elite athletes — and you've talked about three of the best there — how did you, at this time of

[47:00] year, set up your year, or with your coaches, or in your own mind — when did you actually lay out your goals and objectives? Was it on a calendar you set up? How did you do it? It'd always be a seasonal setup — say your race of the year was a world championship or an Olympics, and then you'd take a period of

[47:31] rest, and then set up your next season off the back of that. You'd always have in mind progression or periodisation over, say, four seasons — you've got an end goal beyond just that season. You'd pick off what the main race is, the first main race of the year, what condition you want to be in, and then what's your A-race of the year, and work backwards from that to build a base — the longer you could build that aerobic base, the better the season would be.

[48:02] So that was always the juggling act, but I'd map it out on a spreadsheet — especially later in my career, Sean Stevens would be the guy I'd be consulting, my mentor around the physical nature of the programmes, and we'd set it out — it was never gospel, but it was a progression plan, where each long run would slowly progress, whether in intensity or

[48:33] distance. And you always need to make sure — I think the key to laying out that season was that the rest was the most important part of that spreadsheet. That Excel spreadsheet with fifty-two weeks on it — the down weeks were the key. What I'm taking away from that for all these average punters who've just set their running resolutions, I'm going to do a spreadsheet — I think we can all manage a

[49:04] spreadsheet to some extent. But the other thing I was thinking about this morning is this idea — I know some people at my level who run with me at times are guilty of this — if my goal is to run my 5K or my 10K or my half marathon at a certain pace, or just achieve it, it's very linear. We think about these goals as "I need to be able to run that pace for this long," and at the moment I can only run

[49:36] that pace for a shorter time, and it's this idea of "I can't achieve it, how am I ever going to achieve it?" But it's about almost shelving the goal and — it's cliché, but it's true — you have all these micro mini-goals in the process that get you to the end result. Sometimes the process is actually more enjoyable than the end result, because you're getting all these little wins or losses in

[50:09] each week as you go. We're drifting very close to a running cliché about enjoying the process. Well, interesting point — after last week I could be starting to get classed as an influencer. Mate, you are an influencer, suck it up and accept it. Hey, let's jump into — have you got anything else from the week? I've been running back in the trails a bit, been running solo. I ran an hour-and-a-half loop in the Nerang, and I saw two guys

[50:40] in that whole hour and a half, two guys on a mountain bike — as I ran past them, they said, "Courtney Atkinson!" and started chatting about the fact we'd just been talking about on the podcast, and said we'd just got sent your reel by the algorithm. Oh no. But it was a good interaction — they'd seen it, they were like, good stuff. I was pretty stoked, because there's only about two people out there in the whole run — if you're going to find me in the morning, if there's any mad running fans out there, Nerang trails, just hang there for a week and you'll bump into me.

[51:11] But the one thing I'm a little concerned about now, because running's been going really well, is January is my proper holiday month. I've got a bit of travel planned next week, I'm off to Fraser Island for four or five nights. Before the dingoes — well, this is the issue, you can't run on Fraser, because of the dingoes. You've hit the nail on the head. I mean, you could probably run along the beach if you're on

[51:41] that side, but pretty much no running on Fraser, that's the whole thing. I just couldn't run on Fraser. Well, that's the — how long have you got. There's basically no running on Fraser, right? Yeah, so much so that — have we got time for another long-winded story? I had the most amazing project set up with Red Bull and Subaru once — a combined project. The idea behind it, I'm not sure if you know Molly Taylor, the driver —

[52:11] Molly Taylor, yep. So she commentates supercars now — Molly is one of Australia's best rally car drivers, full stop. She also now drives in an international electric series, the E-buggies — you've heard of that series, I knew she was part of that. So the idea was, on Fraser Island you obviously have quite hardcore driving tracks and you can only go a certain speed, but what most people won't realise is there's a great walk

[52:41] that cuts through Fraser Island, about fifty K in length, and it goes to all the main key places — it goes to Lake McKenzie, up to Lake Wabby, and touches on Central Station, touches on all the key things. Now, you can drive that as well, and what we worked out is if I ran it, the distance for me running it would actually make the perfect rally race — a stage race — against someone driving it in a normal car. So we got a Subaru, it was pretty much stock but had a bash plate on it, and we were going to

[53:14] have a rally race on Fraser Island — me running, Molly Taylor driving. And we were going to race, I'd do the Great Walk stage and she'd drive it, but under public road conditions, so obviously she couldn't go flat out, she had to stick to the speed limit, and we'd do stages and have a winner at the end of the day. Now, what we didn't take into consideration is that you can't run on Fraser. So we got shut down. Oh, great idea though.

[53:46] If anyone knows somewhere else we could do that, let us know, because I've looked time and time again to try and figure this out. I love that idea. So that was the idea, and talking about Fraser — actually, here you go, I've figured it out for you. You run on the Gold Coast beaches, on the soft sand, against the traffic, and Molly has to fight the traffic of the Gold Coast.

[54:16] You know what, yeah, Gold Coast — I don't think we need Molly to do that, I think we can get anyone with a licence, and I can guarantee I'll win that one. I like it, that's good. But yeah, Fraser's one of those amazing places, obviously, for running. So that's my challenge at the moment — I'm off to Fraser, going to miss five days of running. No gym. Can you ride your bike? Take a dirt bike over and ride the dirt bikes. Yeah, I don't know, maybe the family

[54:46] will just be cruising, family time, alright, just do some push-ups, enjoy your family time, alright, lunges, push-ups, just do some strength work. That sounded a bit too professional — aren't I worried about missing five days? Hey, let's jump into some WTF loose events from around the internet, what have you found? So I'm assuming Sam is one of your friends — Sam Way, yeah, he sent this one through. He's a big fan of the podcast, he's actually laid out some resolutions for himself.

[55:21] He said he caught up on a whole heap of episodes coming back up from Adelaide. He wants to lose some kilos as well, and he sent through this — a mate of his from school who's a great football player, great cricketer, one of those annoying all-round athletes, but wouldn't have ever said he was a real runner, very much a footballer — he's set himself the goal of doing 10K at four-minute pace, which, given he's currently running 10K at 5:20 pace, that's a lofty goal.

[55:53] So I'm stoked he's setting himself a tough one. But he's also sending this WTF event, which is — he wants to go up against the fella who broke the world record for the fastest marathon run backwards. Have you seen it? What time did he do it in? I've got the data —

[56:24] I just quickly showed Liam the video of him running backwards — while you find this, I've got an embarrassing story about marathon runners running backwards. The first ever marathon I did was London in 2011, and I came in on very short notice and only just beat an English bloke who ran it backwards. You've actually been in a marathon where someone ran it backwards? It was a bit of a sprint finish with the bloke — oh my god, he ran it in 4:14. I think I ended up doing

[56:55] something around 4:10. But I went past him at one point, because I'd read in the media about this guy training around the Thames running backwards. And this French guy holds the world record now, done in three hours twenty-five — that's incredible. Finished nineteenth — that's incredible, running backwards, people are out there going 3:24, and that's not even that fast. Just try running your driveway backwards and think about how inconvenient it is to

[57:26] be constantly turning your head. I'm debating whether to keep bringing these up — let's keep bringing these up, there's so many out there, so much going on. That's pretty crazy, because running backwards isn't easy. So the next one we got in — a build on last week again — was sent in by Jules Kennel, or rather, that's the Instagram account it came from, and it's taking Canicross to the next level. It's Canicross Triathlon — they take their dog swimming,

[57:57] that's fine, then they do a bit on the bike with a bungee attached, then jogging — the dog's pulling on the lead again — and then they finish off with a bit of the old Canicross we discussed last week. I fear for Canicross Triathlon, because you know New Zealand's just banned greyhound racing, it's done in New Zealand. So, from that, is that

[58:29] one step towards banning horse racing? I think so — and this is what I mean, because the greyhound industry took a big hit here in Australia a few years ago when it was uncovered there were some really bad practices going on, and they needed to crack down on those people. But New Zealand has basically said it's done, we're not doing greyhound racing anymore, and you'd think the logical next step is that horse racing comes under review. So I fear for Canicross — I think you've got to be very

[58:59] careful that you're not mistreating your dogs in these races, not a fun conversation. I don't think we're going to have too much of an issue with Canicross here in Australia, considering. Anyway, I like this last one you found though, this is my favourite WTF event this week. What is it — the Dramathon? Now, I've got to be honest, when I read it I thought it was about acting during a marathon, I thought it was drama. Let me explain it for you — if you like whiskey and running, you need to check out the Dramathon.

[59:30] "Five years ago I flew to Scotland to run this race. I had just started running, and like many dudes in their thirties, I had made whiskey my entire personality. The Dramathon is a marathon in Scotland — the name refers to a dram of whiskey, which is a Scottish way of saying a small measure or shot of whiskey. Here's a few reasons why this race is so great. First, the trail itself is amazing — you get to run through a castle and some really cute small towns. You get to run past like ten whisky distilleries. My favourite part was getting to run through the Balvenie Distillery, and it's not open to the public, so running this race is one of the only ways to see it. Second, the goodie bag is

[01:00:02] basically just those little mini bottles of whiskey, and that's just perfect — what else could you ask for? And finally, the medal you get is a piece of an old whiskey barrel, which is so creative. To me, the biggest challenge is just trying to get there — it's several hours from the city." Look, I was a bit disappointed, because I thought this was going somewhere else. You thought this was going to be a whiskey version of a beer mile? Yeah, where you have to taste along the way? I thought it was going to be running between distilleries and

[01:00:33] doing a shot of whiskey or whatever at each one. Couldn't think of anything worse than that, honestly, that sounds terrible — but you'd have mates here in Australia who do the pub crawls in some kind of run, whether it's running or the — yeah, North Burleigh, they do the old ski-paddle start down at, well, and paddle, and do the surf clubs — do they take some beers in an esky and hit some of the surf clubs on the way back? Only problem there is I'd fall out of the ski, and I'd

[01:01:04] never make it, and it'd be nothing to do with the drinking. Yeah, I know it's not because of the beers, but there's a big — I'm assuming it's the same in Sydney and other places, but here on the Gold Coast this is a big thing, people do a pub crawl as a running crawl, with a run in between — run from Coolangatta to the surf clubs and stop at every one along the way. What I loved about that Dramathon is it comes back to what you and I have spoken about, about races and adventure racing and all the rest of it — it's the experience, right? This marathon

[01:01:37] gives you access to places you literally can't access as a member of the general public, day to day. So it's not even about the whiskey, it's about the opportunity to run in places you can't otherwise run. I love the idea — and you're someone who knows the parts of this country better than most, with all the adventure stuff you've done — I love the idea of creating a race as a one-off thing, and it doesn't even have to be

[01:02:08] every year, maybe it's every couple of years, you get access to run private property. Private property, I agree. And this is why — the road runners listening are probably going, whatever, with the trail running — but this is what's so unique, what I love about trail running, is that you can go and do a long trail run, whether it's a race or training or a bit of an adventure, and you get to see so much more of a location than you

[01:02:39] ever would otherwise. You'd either have to hike it over four days, or you can't drive there, the only other option's a helicopter. That's what you get out of trail running — you get to go to locations no one else gets to, and see more, quicker, than any other form of transport. Now I know you're Tassie-bound in March for the — what is it, kunanyi?

[01:03:09] Have you ever heard of the King Island run? No — you know little King Island off the coast of Tassie? A lot of people go there for the cattle, and to play golf, there's a great golf course there — but this is a race called "the race that stops an island," set on scenic King Island. "Enter our unique thirty-two-kilometre race amidst jagged reef, sandy beaches and lush landscapes, on an epic coastal

[01:03:40] journey." This looks — we'll talk about it a bit more, but it looks like an awesome race. Somebody sent that through to me and said you'd love this one, as far as experiential running goes. Island trail run, exactly right, yeah, nice. Okay, so I did promise at the beginning about bringing in some fundamentals of running, because we were saying — I nearly said a cliché — what was I saying, help me out, one

[01:04:10] — at the beginning of the episode I nearly said "enjoy the process," when talking about Courtney saying that your body doesn't understand kilometres, it understands time, and the idea of goal-setting and wanting to enjoy the process. People are, you know, whichever side you sit on, people are calling out cliché — like I said, we're never going to take ourselves too seriously, take it with a grain of salt. But what resonated with me came through on

[01:04:40] an email newsletter I'm on, from Mario Fraioli — like ravioli? No — he sends out, and I did a bit of research on him, checked where his expertise comes from — he sends out a weekly newsletter about all things running that he pulls together from across the internet. This seemed quite interesting, but what resonated with me is that he pretty much summarised most of what I believe works in

[01:05:11] running, coming back to the fundamentals. So it was like, if you want to get better at running, just be ruthless about the fundamentals — that's his heading, and here's the summary, I'll give it to you, any questions or comments, shoot out. I pretty much agree with this. Number one: if you're starting out on your journey, good runners are good athletes first. Meaning that, especially when you're older, if you believe you can just run and only run and not look after

[01:05:41] your body, you're not going to get away with that — good runners have come from doing a range of other sports, then they finally specialise in running. Right, that makes sense — training balance, speed, being more than just one motion, strength training. As we go through these, I'm going to give the average person's take on it. If you're listening and thinking "well, I'm not a good athlete," I think the takeaway is

[01:06:15] feel free and feel encouraged — if you're starting out on your running journey, your week doesn't have to just be filled with running. If you want to run, it's okay to go do a Pilates class or a strength class or something else with the view that it's going to help your running. But also, on the most basic level, I hear this all the time, especially around our age — "I'm a runner, I run, and then I go play soccer with my kid and I can't move the next day"

[01:06:46] because your body can't do anything besides running. So having a holistic approach to fitness, I suppose, is my belief around that. Number two: rest and recovery is part of training, not punishment. We've talked about this — in my spreadsheet, pretty much, he quotes Bill Bowerman of Nike: "stress your system, then rest — that's what leads to the growth." Stress the system, do the training, rest, that's where you get the growth. You don't get the growth from

[01:07:18] training, training, training, training, training — that's when you break. Just on that though, because we talk about consistency, it's about consistency, not perfection — it's that idea of understanding when do I break away from my consistency and reach for something a little bit beyond what I've been doing in order to find improvement. Does that make sense?

[01:07:48] That makes a hundred percent sense — you slowly build the stress, but then you need to take the rest to allow the body to absorb it and improve, right? So yep, a hundred percent agree with that. To improve you need to stress your body, no one's disagreeing with that — even at the moment, I was running with Jacko this morning from Gold Coast Run Co, and we were talking about the idea that probably the last few years we've run too easy, to really

[01:08:20] stress ourselves, so we've just been in that nowhere land, and what you find over time is we've just lost our speed base — you're in a holding pattern. You have to go through a bit of pain to get the fruit at the end of it. Okay, alright. So number three, kind of the same thing — small deposits add up to big gains over time. That's the consistency, not every workout has to be a breakthrough. What's he saying here — one of his quotes: pushing too hard in a single workout can derail your long-term progress, so you've got to be careful and

[01:08:51] manage it. You want to stress the body, but the worst thing you can do is tip over the top — same as the worst thing you can do is turn up to a race overdone. You're better off being five percent undercooked than overdone. Okay, number four: consistency is more important than intensity. Oh, this could sound a bit contradictory to what we just said —

[01:09:23] but he emphasises that running regularly, even at a slow pace, over time will yield better results than doing fewer, sporadic, faster runs. That makes sense, that makes sense — put simply, the longer you can go uninjured and uninterrupted, building an aerobic base, the top of the pyramid, how fast you can go, will be better as a result.

[01:09:54] Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. And this is — the reason we're going through all this is, it's the fundamentals, running shouldn't be complicated, there's some really simple things you can do. We talked about double thresholds, the Norwegian method, all that — first things first, let's get the fundamentals right. I really like this one — rating of perceived exertion, RPE — have you ever heard of that, one to ten, how you're feeling, do you use that?

[01:10:25] So if you're, say, over at Red Bull's training centre in Santa Monica doing your lactate testing, or the same with VO2 testing, you've got lactate data, oxygen data, heart rate data — but the one thing we always do is RPE as well. As you're going through that test, you're correlating that RPE — how much effort do you feel at this stage, is it easy, moderate, somewhat hard, hard, extremely

[01:10:55] hard? Now, for your average person out there, that's a hard thing to do as an amateur athlete, because for most of us, if we go out for a run, at the end we're cooked, we feel knackered, and we think, "that was an eight or nine out of ten run," all the time. So it's hard — that idea of RPE seems like a

[01:11:26] simple scale, because it's one to ten, but the reality is you never set yourself, oh, that was only a one, or the lower end of the scale — in particular if you're not an elite athlete, it's something you don't really explore. So what I'd add on to that — call it the amateur add-on — is go and find your five out of ten. Go and find your middle-of-the-road run. We talked about

[01:11:56] benchmarking, whether it's your 5K, your 10K, whatever it is, go and find your five-out-of-ten run, so you know that's your middle range. I'm talking about the run you know you can just punch out any day, no worries — make that your middle-of-the-road run, so you then have a point of reference on the scale. And if you run below that in intensity, that lives somewhere between one and four, and if you run harder than that, it'll sit

[01:12:28] somewhere between six and ten. In simple terms, on that one-to-ten scale, if you just ask yourself, does this feel somewhat easy, or hard — you can go online, Google it, you'll see the scale, it really does help, it correlates to the metrics. I'll be really upfront here and say I don't fully understand it — but for

[01:12:59] someone who's trying to run a marathon, half marathon, even a 10K, and their goal time is something like a four-and-a-half or five-hour marathon, or similar across the distances — for someone in that space, who has real expertise coaching athletes at that level, what type of paces would they recommend for an easy run? You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely — I

[01:13:31] think about, like, five minutes per K as an easy run — people throw that around as an easy run, but it's not easy for everyone at that pace. I'm just wondering what the prescription of training paces looks like for someone at that goal, because at some point there's a scale where you're literally jogging really slowly to get that effort out, but I don't know — I want to pick this up during the year, and

[01:14:02] there's — we'll have to find a coach who coaches people at that level. I think I know someone we can bring in. For context, right now I'm benchmarking my own five-out-of-ten run as being about a 10K run at around 5:10 pace — that's my middle-of-the-road run, one I can comfortably go out and do any day, chatting away, and

[01:14:34] get to the end not cooked. But a 5-minute-10 pace for someone aiming for the time you're talking about is the pointy end, that's their ten out of ten. So I'd love to get more information to help people getting into running, in terms of a prescription — this is your goal pace target — instead of just going out there without any idea. We don't have time to get into it today, given how long we've been going, Courtney.

[01:15:04] No, 1:16, yeah, we don't have time to get into it today, but there's an article we might get into next week — there's a fellow named Jeff Galloway, an American, whose name has literally become a verb, called "Jeffing," the run-walk method. I read this article, it's called "Jeffing, the run-walk method that can get you to the marathon finish line," and it's this idea, for people setting out to finish their first ever marathon — Jeff Galloway basically says you run until you're

[01:15:36] all huffing and puffing, then walk, then run until huffing and puffing, then walk. What you just said brings up that other conversation, Liam, about running a marathon versus doing a marathon, completing a marathon versus running a marathon — and we don't have time. We do not have time. Okay, so number six: once you get fancy, fancy gets broken — great saying, I reckon. Once you get too fancy with everything, most elite athletes, when they achieve

[01:16:09] that end goal — world champions, world records, even at the elite level — everyone's looking at what they're doing at that point, but they haven't seen the consistency over twenty years to get there. There's a process, I bet there's a very simple system they've repeated over and over again, and that's what actually gets the results. There's an American basketball player, retired now, but basketball fans will know as soon as I mention him — his name's Tim Duncan, one of the top ten

[01:16:40] basketball players of all time, played for the San Antonio Spurs, nicknamed "the Big Fundamental," because he just did the fundamentals, practised the basics, time and time again — there was nothing fancy about Tim Duncan, they're not making highlight reels of him because nothing he did was fancy, but what he did every single game was the fundamentals, over and over, and he was a winner. It's true in all sport.

[01:17:10] True in all sports. Yeah, these resonated with me because they make sense — this is like, when I come back to "what's not right, how do I improve things" — just get back to the basics. And then the final one, a bit of a cliché we talked about earlier, but find the joy, right — it's monotonous, that's not quite the word I'm looking for, monotonous — yes, you were close, English wasn't my strength — but finding the joy, it's true.

[01:17:40] It's so true, it's going to be day in, day out, you've got to get out there, but the routine — in a way it's the routine that gives you the freedom, because you're not overthinking it every day, you just know what you're going to do, there's a system to it, just keep repeating it — consistency, give yourself the rest, and you'll come back. So his conclusion was, it's not rocket science, running — exactly, Mario Fraioli.

[01:18:11] What do you think? I like that — what I like about it is he's clearly a bloke, I don't know who he is, but he's clearly a high-level running coach, or he knows running very well. I think he's just done a lot of research, pulled in — you talk about metadata — brought in all the information and come to the conclusion that, hey, I've looked at everything, all the little tricks and bits, and it's a common theme. And to that point, all

[01:18:42] seven points he ran through are things the average person could probably deduce themselves. But again, we live in a world of Instagram and influencers and everything else out there, so much information, and like in life, everybody wants to find the shortcut, everybody wants the cheat sheet, everybody wants to find the hack that's going to get them to their goal quickly. But the reality is, like

[01:19:13] everything else, you've got to do the work. You've got to do the work, and do it smart. So if you've set yourself a running goal for this year, there'll be days where you're frustrated, where it seems out of reach, unachievable. But the reality is, if you just keep doing the work, even on the days you feel crap, even on the days when you think "I don't think I can do this, I don't really want to do this" — if you can just put the shoes on on those days, they're the days that are going to add up when race day comes, or

[01:19:43] when that total of hours or kilometres or whatever you're trying to hit comes — those are the days you're going to remember. That's what Mario's talking about, I think, keep it simple. That's how I read it anyway. Now we've got a lot we didn't get to today because we've run out of time, we've got some more — I loved our watch chat by the way, today Courtney, and I know you've got some sunglasses you wanted to talk about, we'll get to that another time. But again, shout out to everybody who's getting the big surge — interested to see how many of those people hold on after this. But we'll be back next week.

[01:20:16] Happy New Year to everybody out there, hope you have a safe and happy start to 2025, and we'll see you next week.