EP 22 - $114 FOR A CHINESE CARBON SHOE

[00:00] In the beginning, episode 22. Courtney, mate, what's going on with your nose? Funny you ask, I just got a bit chopped off it. I've got a biopsy. So when do we find out about that? Hopefully it's good news in two weeks, but I don't think it's a real bad one. These days they just seem to see them all and go, we'd better take it out just in case. So it's probably no need to worry down this path right now. But runners out there, if you haven't had your skin checked, go do it. It's a super quick thing.

[00:32] But if we run outside in the heat and the sun, it's probably good to be a bit careful. I always wear a hat. I don't wear sunscreen religiously, I'll admit. If I went to the beach in the middle of the day I'd be more careful, but in the morning running, even at 8:30, I got out on a Monday this week, shirt off up at the Spit, purposely browning up a bit. I shouldn't say that, but I was letting it get a bit. You're meant to have vitamin D though, the human body's meant to take some in.

[01:03] Yeah, I thought I was getting away with it, given the years spent at the beach in the surf, and then years cycling with the arms exposed, 15 hours a week. I thought I'd got away with it, but lately I'm starting to see some of the effects. Well, I'm glad things are hopefully okay. I'm interested, do you always run your long runs on a Sunday?

[01:34] I'd say except for last week, yeah, I'd say 90% of the weeks I run my long run on Sunday. Except what happened last Sunday. Last Sunday you and I were finally going to run together, that's why you put it at the top, we hadn't been for a run together in a while. Backstory again if you missed the last episode: I'm doing this eight-week challenge, no booze, whole foods, clean eating, trying to see what sort of shape I can get myself into over the eight weeks.

[02:04] As part of that I'm obviously off the booze, and we had a 40th birthday last Saturday night. Now, you and I had messaged, we were meant to go up into the Nerang trails and do the 17K loop, I was looking to get 20Ks, a couple of hours out there on the trails with some nice elevation. I said come for a run, we'd lined it up, 5:30 start. I ended up at a 40th with my wife, it was her best friend's

[02:34] husband's 40th, about an hour away up the M1. It got to about 9:30 and we'd been there three and a half hours, and I started doing the maths. It's going to take an hour to drive home, then another half hour to get to sleep, I'm not getting to sleep till 11. If I need to meet Courtney at 5:30, I probably need to wake up at 4:30. Suddenly I'm operating on four and a half hours' sleep, this is starting to become unfeasible. And your whole week you get up

[03:05] at 3:30, every week with a 3:30am alarm. So I tried the old subtle hint to my wife, saying I'm actually a bit tired, I might lie down in the car, just a bit sleepy, don't want to fall asleep on the drive home. She's like, alright, I'll finish this beer and we'll go. I'm like, no, no, don't rush. And I went down, fell asleep in the car, woke up an hour and a half later and it's 11 o'clock.

[03:35] I texted you and said, mate, I'm not making this run tomorrow morning. As it was I think I got to sleep at 1am, so I would have been working off about three and a half hours' sleep, wouldn't have been great before our run. I got that message in the car park while I was waiting for you, but it didn't matter because I got out to run anyway. The reason I'm asking is, why do we all do our long runs on Sundays? It's kind of baked into Australian running structure, everyone's always done their long run on a

[04:06] Sunday. I'd suggest the original reason is if you work, running longer gives you more time on a Sunday to do it. But the challenge now is, with people running with families or just running for amateur reasons, is that outdated? Would you get a better weekend if you chose to do your long run on a Saturday morning instead? I think the

[04:36] thing is, and there are probably people listening to this on their long run right now who think this episode doesn't go for long enough because they're only halfway through their long run when the podcast finishes up, so apologies, we're not going to start talking for two and a half hours. Look, my attitude, I've never actually stuck to long run on Sunday because I thought it was physically best for me, I've just kind of done it because that's what everyone's always said to do. Do you long run Sundays? Long run Sundays, exactly, but I've still done the

[05:08] occasional long run Saturday, and I don't really know why I do it on Sundays except that's when everyone kind of does it. I agree it's become a thing where if you follow a weekly structure, you might do some type of session Tuesday, some type of session Thursday, maybe a Saturday morning session, and then your long run Sunday. That's a pretty standard Australian programme. But what's got me thinking is, if you structured your week and got out there on a

[05:39] Saturday morning and got everything done, then Sunday is your rest day. Not only is that a rest day, but it could be incrementally better too. I'm even thinking from a balanced-life point of view, if you're working and doing all these other things, family, you get it out of the way and then you've got the whole weekend to go off and do what you need to do. I like the idea, but I can't speak to it from any position of authority, because the reality of radio life is I'm not

[06:09] going to sit here and try to tell people how to balance their lives around a normal nine-to-five job, because I don't have that, it'd be hypocritical of me to suggest it. I've got enough time in my week to do my long runs Monday to Friday if I wanted to, that's true, I'm not going to try to tell people how to fit long runs around a normal job. Fair. You can do it if you want, you can call me out, I'm probably even less qualified to do that, but I do stick to it.

[06:40] Funny enough, I could run any day, majority of days, whatever I like. But I still get up at 5am, get out there at 5:30, and right now I'm doing sessions every single day. It's interesting, when I run long with my brother he sometimes switches it to Saturday morning, that comes from a coach he used to use, partly for recovery and partly just giving people with families more time to operate on the

[07:11] weekend without running taking over their life. The other thing I'd say quickly on that is, people like doing solo long runs, but I also think for the average runner the long run is potentially more of a community run than the other runs during the week, and it's easiest to match that up in a group setting on a Sunday morning. That's true too, because that's when it's most convenient for most people. Now that's a great segue, because I want to bring this back from past

[07:43] episodes, we've talked before about who you should trust as a coach. What's it based on, a recommendation from a friend? Have they gone to run coach school, are they a run doctor, have they been to run college? Funny enough, Athletics Australia, I've just found out — well, Jack, who was coaching

[08:15] me this morning, pointed out they have an Instagram page, Athletics Australia Coaching, where they provide information to their run students. Have a listen to this, they've got a perspective on the long run. This week we're looking at a study by Casado and colleagues exploring the most important training factors that predict elite performance in long-distance runners. What was the biggest factor in

[08:46] elite long-distance running success? Total running volume. The more an athlete runs, the better they perform. In fact 59% of performance variation was explained by how much they ran. This means that for long-distance success, consistently accumulating high mileage is key. But how that mileage is structured matters too — the chart shows that although easy long-run volume had the strongest correlation with performance, tempo runs and short interval sessions also had a significant effect.

[09:16] So high mileage may be the key to success, but there's one big catch: it's useless if athletes can't or won't train. Pushing mileage too high too soon can lead to overuse injuries, mental fatigue and loss of motivation, and can derail progress for the athletes who stay in it. Have we lost our listeners yet? No, no, I don't think you've lost them, it's funny listening to that though. So that's a run doctor, as we'll call them, who's gone to run college and is trying to teach students, and it comes from a study. That's what the first part of it

[09:48] was, a proper meta study. Listening to that, it's really interesting for a non-elite runner like myself to hear it framed slightly differently, that mileage matters, time on your feet matters, but what also matters is how you accumulate that time on feet. You can't just do one

[10:20] thing, they both matter. I knew both those things, but hearing them explained that way is interesting. What jumped out to me — I don't quite know how to classify it, I almost want to call it the influencer-misunderstanding concept — is that going from not enough kilometres to too many kilometres leads to injuries. And there's a very prominent example right now in the run

[10:53] influencer world copying it in a massive way. The Lambros brothers, there we go. Let's jump into it. So last week, if we're too short for your long run, I spoke with the Trail Keepers out of Brisbane, who have a very different crowd to us, they call people out quite hard, or they have in the past. We had a good conversation, but the Lambros brothers came up because

[11:23] I spend a fair bit of time with them, stayed in the same accommodation, took them for runs, that sort of thing. They asked my opinion on them, and I simply said — are they what they seem on camera? My answer was no, they're creating content, they're acting. They're a different generation to me, but at the same time they're polite, never had a problem with them, they seem like good blokes. That doesn't make them bad

[11:54] people. What's happening at the moment, for those who aren't following this, quick backstory: two brothers ran across Australia raising money for cancer and have now made this their social media identity, they do challenges, they run marathons in the desert. Are they great runners? Absolutely not. Do I put them in the category of Nedd Brockman, who did that same achievement? Absolutely not. But what's happened in the last couple of weeks, or maybe it's been going on longer,

[12:24] is there's been an enormous backlash against them because they've decided in recent weeks to launch a podcast — and unlike what you and I do, coming from a position of teaching you how to become a runner, they're attempting to convey lessons and learnings from their experiences. And they'd previously set it

[12:54] up to offer a paid service. I did hear about the paid service, the coaching programme, that's where I'd heard it — which has interestingly gone away now, because when I saw it being offered as a paid service I thought I'd have a look at what it involved, read through it, was never going to sign up, but as somebody with my level of running understanding, I thought this isn't worth the money, and

[13:24] it's that old thing, if it looks too good to be true, chances are it probably is. Interestingly that's gone now, there's no way to sign up, and I don't know what happens if you do because I don't want to. But going back to this influencer mentality of, we can teach you, it's all mindset, we can teach you to go from nothing to everything in ten weeks.

[13:55] If you just believe us, with no real foundation to it — there's a perfect example of guys who've done this and now their persona on socials is one of experts, and because they're attempting to run the length of the UK shortly, the tide has really turned on them. I'm not someone to tell people what to do, do what you want, but I think people should be warned

[14:26] about the dangers of being led down the wrong path. There's a fellow named Jack Bennett, a very good cyclist, lives in Sydney, incredible cyclist, runs a page called Life Without Andy, he's an amazing photographer too. I noticed, watching one of the Lambros brothers' videos talking about calorie deficit

[14:56] and how it led to injuries and how they recovered — blah blah blah — I didn't really understand what they were talking about, my gut said probably don't listen to it. But interestingly Jack, the very good cyclist, was the first top comment, and he just said, this is wrong. If you follow any documentaries or learnings from the Tour de France, those guys live on high-carbohydrate diets, fuelled by carbs, because of the

[15:30] kilometres they're punching out, the time in the saddle. Jack was saying — and he doesn't have a podcast platform or anything, I had to point that out — he was independently calling these guys out and saying what you're doing, seeding this information out to people and then trying to get them to pay for it, is dangerous. And that's when I felt the tide had turned on these guys, that once you've gone down the path of being this character trying to drive

[16:01] this message — we can take you from nothing to everything in this short period of time if you just pay us — I think it's turned. I think the running public has become aware enough of that influencer bubble, of 'we can teach you to run a marathon even if you're significantly overweight and haven't run since year 10.' I think the bubble's popped, and I'm glad the running public, amateur and professional,

[16:33] has grown up and matured enough to ignore that sort of stuff. I can barely keep all the thoughts going in my head right now, I'm trying to remember what I want to say, there's too much going on. I'll try to keep it to two things, three things, off the back of this. We know even with what's happening in the States, we're having a shift change, a whole range of things at the moment,

[17:03] and I think that's going to have an effect on influencers too, we're having a bit of a course correction, wherever that lands. I think it'll affect the influencer world and the type of content, and the way people can call each other out, both ways. Fair, everyone gets their chance, that's all fine and good. But the first thing I want to say, about where I think the line has to be drawn: everyone can say what they want,

[17:33] everyone can do what they want, that's fine. Once information starts becoming dangerous, that's where the line's got to be drawn, because that can hurt people. If you're taking information you don't really know and putting it out there without any caveat that this is just your experience — the difference is telling people versus just telling them what you do. Once you're giving advice, and it's dangerous, that's the point where it should be called out. Talking about your experiences

[18:03] is different to instructing others on how to do things. Exactly, and if we ever do that here, I'm happy to be called out. We'll always try to tell people this is from my experience, but every so often you might slip into telling people to do this or that, and that could be wrong. So the one caveat is, the only time I think I've ever heard you give advice is when it's been asked for, in response to a question someone submitted. We're going to continue doing that — if people ask questions of us, we'll answer them.

[18:34] Going off the back of that, what I learned — I was being coached this morning, went to the run group down at Gold Coast Run Co. Doesn't matter who you are or what level you're at, there's always an element where you can continue to learn, or you need someone external to point things out, even if you already know some of it, but you want them to have expertise and your trust. So I was running this morning, and something clicked for me, running with Jack. We did a threshold session to begin with, and

[19:05] that was fine, I'd been running okay. Then we did some hill sprints and I was hopeless, literally second-last out of a group of twenty, from teenagers up to some of the best Australian runners. Jacko ran up past me bounding, and I was trying to struggle up really hard, and all I did was ease into a bit of a bound and overemphasise what I was doing, and all of a sudden my hips came up, I was bounding off the ground

[19:36] and I just thought, Jacko, I just watched you and it clicked — something I'd never quite gotten a handle on. He gave a bit of advice, we'd talked about cues earlier too, and there's one he often uses before hill sessions: think of your knee as a lever, imagine a stick going through your knee, and when you bring your leg and

[20:06] foot through, you want to be able to lift your knee high enough to get your foot over that stick. I don't know if that's coming through clear enough, I can explain it better when I show it, but it's a cue that works for me. All of a sudden it clicked this morning, and I'm running up this hill bounding, feeling great, calves unlocked, everything great. It came off just a little cue, and seeing someone I trust — where I'm going with all this is, we're talking about advice and listening to people you trust.

[20:36] Doesn't matter who you are, you've always got something to learn or relearn, there's always something new you can add. It never changes. The other word you just mentioned, which is a key one for anybody looking to get a run coach or find some inspiration or instruction, is trust. You running with Jacko this morning — there's someone you trust, and you've learnt something. I think the bubble's burst on these influencers who don't have the audience's trust on the technical stuff and

[21:07] expertise. I think the trust has gone, and the public's caught up, which is nice. I'm happy for your running, I'm excited for it. But to double down on the back of that, we talked about the Australian coaching stuff and we agree with it, it's not just common sense, but we're all in agreement on best practice: the more you run, the more chance you've got to run better, the more your mileage does matter, but you've got to do it conservatively — mileage matters, and mileage

[21:39] with structure matters more. There you go, that was some pretty heavy running stuff. Can we talk about an event quickly? Go for it. Coast to Coast — you've done this event, haven't you? I've done it twice, raced it once, I've got a feeling I got 5th, or 6th, 7th, somewhere around there. Can you summarise Coast to Coast for anybody who might not know it? As far as I'm concerned it's the best adventure race, well,

[22:10] the hardcore adventure racers will call me out and say it's a multi-sport event, not an adventure race, but I call it an adventure race because it's an adventure and it's a race, and it's in one day. It's longer than an Ironman, the winners go about eleven hours. The elite winners start on one side of New Zealand at Greymouth, run off the beach three K, get on a bike, ride up the range 60K give or take, then a 30K mountain run, one of the hardest mountain runs or trail runs you'll ever do. The first 16K is up a river on

[22:43] boulders, then you get up into the pass and it's muddy and crazy. Then the real fun begins, because you jump back on the bike quickly, and then you've got a 70-kilometre paddle down a river with grade-2 rapids. Half the time you don't know which way you're going because there are braids in the river, and some of the braids turn into dead ends. What do you do at a dead end? You portage, you basically get out of the boat, pick it up,

[23:14] and walk back over to where the river's still running. In the weeks before the race people will go and learn the river, and that's what makes it so hard for the Australians to win, because the Kiwis are locals and understand the river and the terrain, such a big advantage. Then you finish on the other side of New Zealand, arriving at Christchurch after another 70K cycle, normally into a headwind to finish. It's a manic event.

[23:44] Good news is — I don't know the exact stat, but Alex Hunt won it from Australia this weekend, took it out for the Aussies for the first time since John Jacoby, and I'm not even going to guess how many decades ago that was. So the Aussies have reclaimed the crown of the — they call it the Multisport World Championship, self-proclaimed of course, but I truly believe it is. It's on my bucket list. If you ever came to Red Bull

[24:15] Defiance and did the race Red Bull put on, that's the one, it's not running exactly, but it's a race you've got to go to. What do we have to do to get Defiance back up and going? I'd love to hear this, a bit of crowdsourcing — if you know what Red Bull Defiance was, and you've got an idea for the most epic Red Bull Defiance course in Australia that you

[24:46] could come up with — the one caveat is it's got to have something unique in it. The uniqueness of the one up at Mission Beach near Cairns was the first hour and a half of the race was white water rafting.

[25:16] So it's got to have magic in there, it's got to capture the imagination, 100%. If you can figure that out for us, you never know. I feel like people have been trying to do that for us a little already, but for the ITB family, slide into the DMs, leave a comment, we'd love to get Courtney and the Red Bull crew to bring this event back. I think it was one of the greatest races and things I've ever done, and I'd love to see them bring it back, and if we can light the spark with something from here, all the better. And Alex, massive congrats, well done winning one of the Red Bull Defiances.

[25:46] Good training grounds. Now I've got something here for you, Liam, three pictures, and I'm going to explain them to you and I want to know what you think. First picture is a whole heap of really nice — tender, an egg with a bit of pepper on top, some berries and avocado on a cutting board. Second picture is a whole heap of nutrition stuff, I can see some

[26:18] collagen, some organic apple cider vinegar at the back, some creatine, a few other things sprinkled in. And the third I can see multiple journals and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. What's going on here? This is a very organised young man, we've spoken about him before, it's Will Ashcroft's post I'm grabbing. I know people want us to start

[26:50] getting guests on In The Beginning, and we're planning on doing that, it's in the works. Will Ashcroft has to be one of the first, because this young man, with the stuff we've talked about with noise-makers in the social media space, in the athletic world, in footy, with professionalism towards your sport — he's the Venn diagram for a lot of the things we've talked about. Fascinating young man, I'd love to speak to him one on one.

[27:20] Getting back to the pictures — his headline was 'process-driven 2025,' this is coming off winning Best on Ground, the Norm Smith Medal, in the Grand Final, and thank you because he made me look like a genius, because every podcast or radio show I went on in the lead-up to that grand final I said Lions to win, Will Ashcroft to win the Norm Smith, because I know how professional he is, and we'd chatted about him before. I look at these photos and I

[27:50] love it, I'm really excited to see how he goes on-field, I'll get to call some of his games this year for Triple M. If you break it down, the food shows he's looking after his health, putting the right fuel into his body. The supplements picture shows what he can't get from food alone, he's found what he needs as an elite athlete. And the picture with the journals and the noise-cancelling

[28:20] headphones shows he's aware of his mental needs as well as his physical ones, and that he's found a way to prioritise and organise those for himself too. That's what I see in those photos. He's just become the best player in the Grand Final last year, who are we to say what's right or wrong, it's working for him and that's amazing. I'm exhausted just looking at that. Everyone's got their own way

[28:51] of going about things, and with this new generation I'll call it journalling, it's become such a thing. I don't journal, but I'm going to try to remember — back in pre-digital times we talked about Excel spreadsheets, I'll go one step further back for you next week and bring out my original training journals. So did you journal, or do you?

[29:21] I journalled when I had a young kid, you could call it a journal, but I journalled my training, what I was writing was how I felt in training, what happened around training. There are some interesting stories I probably wrote later about why I trained so badly the next day. I'll show you these next week, we'll have a different conversation on that. So yeah, I did journal, but not about my feelings, I journalled because I wanted to look at why I was performing or not performing. So the new way of journalling —

[29:51] I don't think it's necessarily a training diary, it's a life diary, it's about emptying out your thoughts and figuring out what's working for you in life and all that. I've said this before: I would much prefer to watch Netflix, if I want to relax I'm watching Netflix or Prime, or even happy to just sit down and play Tetris.

[30:24] To me that's the work — I did enough hard training that I didn't want to come home and do extra work on top of it. There you go, that's an elite athlete's view, you've got the runs on the board, you do what you do, the old-school approach. Courtney, you do you, let Will do him, they're both going to work out. As for the average person, I had

[30:54] — have you ever listened to the Resilience Project, Hugh van Cuylenburg? He's now got the Imperfects podcast, the latest episode with Mick Fanning is incredible. I went and saw Hugh speak, do his presentation, The Resilience Project, years ago when I was still living in Sydney. It was genuinely amazing. I took a lot of lessons out of it, I still regurgitate some of the stories he told, not as my own, I always say I heard this story from Hugh van Cuylenburg. Incredible,

[31:25] if you ever get a chance to see him do it, it's an amazing experience. He has these — he calls them the Resilience Diaries — you fill out things like, today I was proud of this, today I was happy with this, I feel this way because I'm grateful for this person. I tried to consistently fill those out. Did you have the diary? Yep, I couldn't stick to it, it just couldn't, I think I'm

[31:58] like you, I got to the point where I liked the idea of what they're meant to provide for people. Dusty Martin — Hugh talks about the impact that stuff had on Dustin Martin, one of the best footballers we've ever seen in the AFL — and my brain liked the idea of that, I liked the thought I could get the same stuff out of it, but I didn't, it just didn't provide the same results for me. I've got

[32:31] friends who journal and talk about it, and I kind of go, I wish it did the same for me, but I tried it and it didn't. I love that you said you liked the idea of it, sometimes the idea is nearly the motivating factor rather than the actual outcome, you'll try things, I agree. But what I'm doing here is not — we're not ragging on this.

[33:01] This has changed a lot of sportspeople's perspectives and they've had amazing results out of it, I'm just presenting the other side, that it doesn't work for everyone, there's no cookie-cutter solution here. Well, you're having a bad day, so you should go and journal — to some people that is the answer, but to me that's

[33:32] something I'd hate. I've never been an elite athlete, but even right now, by numbers, it's not X plus Y equals Z, it's — you know what, last night, I'll talk a bit about my running week in a minute, but after I finished a run last night, I was running with music off my watch through headphones, finished my run, had about two Ks to walk home, took the headphones out,

[34:03] and consciously — because I'm at the radio station and doing podcasts, I have stimuli going into my head constantly, even in the car it's a podcast, there's stimuli constantly — I made a very conscious decision last night after my run to take the headphones out and not even look at my watch, just stop and see if I could exist with

[34:35] nothing. You're like a human amplifier, just noise coming in the whole time. And every time I do that, I find my brain drifts and starts thinking about things, not in a panicky way, just a nice way, and I start thinking through things that are so much more valuable to me than sitting down at night writing my thoughts down. Well, I don't need to keep them, but that's better. I've said this before,

[35:05] when I'm running — I've actually got a bit of a predicament sometimes now, because sometimes I run with my phone to listen to a podcast, and when I do I can kind of verbally take notes as I go, because when I'm thinking of things that's actually good. But when I run without my phone and have these ideas, by the time I get back I've forgotten what the idea was. I have a theory that if it's important enough, you'll remember it. Yeah, that's fair, everyone's different.

[35:37] I think the message is, do you — just because everyone else is journalling doesn't mean you have to if it doesn't work for you. Just on the AFL stuff while we're talking about Will — have you seen this, this fella follows us, that's how I noticed, he's a supporter — Max Gawn runs, double, double gang. If you're not aware of Max Gawn, captain of the Melbourne Demons, he's a seven-foot-tall bloke with an enormous beard and a shaved head, and this account, Max Gawn underscore runs, fair dinkum

[36:11] looks exactly like that. Big tall unit, shaved head, big beard, who runs. Max Gawn's a fit dude by the way, fit for the most part one way or another, but he's a cyclist too, a big cyclist, and he's good mates with Hamish Blake, who's turned himself into a weapon of an athlete as well. Maxi Gawn, very, very aerobically good athlete, so I was glad to see him slot into our IG. Shout out, Maxi Gawn runs. So, onto some — do you want to do your running weeks or loose ends first?

[36:43] Let's tie up some loose ends, there's a few things from the main reel last week, if you're not following on Instagram, In The Beginning. This came off the back of your DEXA scan — Dexter, I don't know why you keep calling it Dexter like it's the serial killer, it's the DEXA scan — part of my eight-week challenge is to measure body fat. We were talking about body fat and got onto the

[37:17] fact that in — I said, why don't you just use callipers? In the elite athlete space that's been criticised by some, in the AFL as an example they don't list the players' weights any more, we weren't sure on the lay of the land, I said behind the scenes this was still going on. We got mixed feedback, some info that the scan is more accurate, so you should use that

[37:48] instead of callipers. What I've researched now, it probably is for certain things, but I'm here to say — I won't say who, it's come from a few different sources, I'm not going to call out which teams — I've got it on good authority it's still happening behind the scenes, for exactly the same reasons I said: it works. If you're trying to measure performance, and your body weight

[38:18] is a factor in that, and you want to measure it over time — this is the key, it's about getting a consistent reading over time. If you use the same callipers and the same person doing it, I probably didn't explain it well enough last week — we're not really concerned about the percentage, that's one of those arbitrary figures you tell your mates. It's about the millimetres, they'll generally take seven sites, the same sites, measure with a tape measure, go back to that exact

[38:49] same site each time, halfway down the calf, halfway around the back of the calf, measure with the tape, cross it off. You get millimetre readings from those seven sites, and around 50 mil is a pretty good indication, though everyone's going to be different — I'd say a forward in a rugby team needs a different scale to look at than a triathlete. It's like the shoe conversation,

[39:19] it's personal, specific to you as a person, but for ease and cost, and because it's quick and can be redone over time, callipers every day of the week. Interestingly, and again I won't say who, but somebody I know who's a former elite athlete reached out and said, regarding callipers, I'm still triggered by my experience with those things. Which goes to show that in some

[39:52] industries they don't use them any more, or don't openly discuss it, because there are both sides to the argument. I'd probably challenge that it's not the fault of the callipers, it's how the conversation happens and why you're doing it, and how it's actually meant to help, not a threatening thing, not the fault of the athlete either, it's the process. I'd go up the

[40:23] chain and say there's pressure coming from an external source putting undue pressure on, or presenting it the wrong way — but if you're an athlete you should want to improve. Absolutely, alright, got that rant out. I've got some science I won't bore you with, but the conclusions I've come to are right. Can I throw something in and I don't want to disappear back into nasal

[40:54] breathing, but we got a message from Jake who wanted to share his thoughts. Love the pod, fellas, recently listened to Kipchoge — the great Kipchoge's one and only podcast from 2022, he only breathes through his mouth while running. If it works for Eliud, I'm on board. Wonder what podcast that was, we'll find it. What are we doing, I'm completely coaster-cosy —

[41:28] we were talking about the main ultra we went and raced last week, and maybe it has something to do with race medals and things like that too. But just so everyone knows what Coast to Kosci is, we've got some information back around — it's from the beach at Eden. Eden's got some — have you heard about the mountain bike parks and everything you've told me about? Yeah, all the investment down there, I was hoping to get down there, at the end of my last Subaru trip I was going to Eden, ended up going somewhere else

[41:59] further south, but I thought I'd get back there on a mountain bike, great big investment in the mountain biking. You start at the beach and run all the way up to Kosciuszko, mainly road, with a 38-kilometre road climb at the end, so I'm assuming that's up to Perisher, up the Charlotte Pass pathway, and then running up to the top — 50 invitations only. I love that, the exclusivity, we've talked about this with events before. Now I apologise, I haven't written down the name of

[42:29] whoever sent this to us, but apparently once you finish Coast to Kosci for the first time you get a Cooper hat, and this is back to finisher prizes — Sally previously told us she went deep on the idea that race events should look at getting better finisher prizes for competitors. Sally had a Tiffany necklace from the Nagoya Women's Marathon, we asked if anybody had other genuinely cool finisher prizes, we talked about the dry bag for some finishers,

[43:02] the Cooper hat's a good one, they're expensive too, but it goes one step further, because every time you finish the race again they give you a pin, so if you spot someone with the hat and see the pins, you'll know they've done Coast to Kosci and how many times. It's like keeping a tally on the side of your cap,

[43:32] it's literally a measuring concept. I love it, this is great, what was the other one — Ando from Wild Earth was talking about the UT 800 belt buckle, that's a good one, but belt buckles are kind of overdone at this point, I don't think they're unique any more. Jen Davies from Red Bull jumped in and said the Yandina 50 finishes at a brewery, and

[44:04] when you finish the 50K you get a growler you can fill at the pub. Unlimited beer, I reckon after 50Ks you'd need it. She said she's got great memories of driving Brett home after it, drinking straight out of the growler, and Dead Cow Gully — she also said you get a vacuum-packed cow-shit

[44:36] trophy, not sure I love that one, but there are some interesting finisher prizes out there. Now let's get to our running weeks. Liam, who goes first? You go, what have you been up to? I almost had a Hedges moment last night in the dark, jumping back to last week's episode — Hedges Avenue on the Gold Coast, there was video going around of an incident where a bloke running in the bike lane, bikes coming the other way, decides he doesn't want to move, puts the bumper bars up, knocks two people off their bikes. Last night I'm running on the left side of the Oceanway path down near

[45:08] Tugun, and two people I'm guessing were tourists or backpackers, from a country where you drive on the opposite side of the road, because they could not have been more on the wrong side.

[45:42] I was watching them from a distance thinking surely they're going to move, running two abreast towards me, and it felt exactly like the Hedges thing, towards me, towards me, and I'm thinking they'll move, there was all this space next to me, but they thought they were in the right. In the end, unlike the bloke in the Hedges video, I didn't put my bumpers up, I stepped up against the fence and they just rode past, and I found

[46:12] myself sympathising a bit more with that bloke on Hedges now, because I almost did the same. In the end I figured they're probably from somewhere else where they think they're on the right side of the road, or they didn't realise there was a lane going on. But the other big thing about that run for me last night — I've been having this feeling, I won't call it zone 2 running because that's a bad word here, but I've

[46:43] been doing a lot of slower trail running, up in the trails, not worried about my per-K pace, more about the time out there and getting elevation, making sure my weekly time on feet is growing. As a result I haven't been doing much threshold or speed work, and honestly, yesterday I knew I should do a threshold run, and I had this really strange

[47:14] feeling of not wanting to run, being nervous about running fast. I didn't want that feeling I know comes from threshold work, didn't want to be knackered — I don't mind the idea of being knackered after a long slow two hours, but the idea of being cooked after a fast session, the red line, I'm genuinely scared of the red line

[47:44] right now, it's a very weird feeling. Are you scared of the red line, or scared of finding out what pace you're doing? I think most people would say I don't want to do the threshold because I'm worried I'll find out where I'm at, but I've left my ego on this running journey a long way behind me. Honestly this podcast has helped me get really comfortable with who I am and what I am as a runner, I just love running, my ego is behind me,

[48:15] I'm still setting targets because I want to get better, so it wasn't about being worried what my threshold pace was, it was genuinely the fear that redlining is tough and I've battled it before and didn't want to hit it. Anyway, last night the kids had dinner, I just put my shoes on and went for a run, and even then my watch was suggesting a 30-minute threshold and I'm thinking, I do not have 30 minutes of

[48:47] threshold in me. In the end I went out thinking I've got to try, so I did a 4K warm-up, then 4K at 5-minute pace, and as I got to the end of that 4K I thought, come on, if you want to run a sub-three-hour marathon later this year at the Gold Coast, you need to be comfortable with this — that's an influencer-ism, comfortable with the uncomfortable, that's a Ned Brockman-ism,

[49:17] get comfortable being uncomfortable, that's Ned's main thing, I literally just heard myself say it, Ned's a fan and would win a suit if he shared that. So I started, no set time in my head, just, you've got to do at least 4Ks, trying to run a bit of threshold. In the end I did 4Ks at solid 4:10s pace, then finished with two more Ks at 5K pace, so a 10K total, and I got to the end of it feeling great,

[49:50] knackered, but great, and it was an important run because I remembered why — I'm doing all the trail running and building time on my feet, but it felt good to go hard. Running fast is good for you, so if you haven't put any fast runs in your week, go do it. I'm with you, I'm learning the same stuff all over again, you've got to jump back in. How's your running week been going?

[50:20] Depends what level of good, but things are moving, I got through about 110K last week, that's a big number — well, relative, but including the run you didn't show up to, which helped, because I doubled on the Sunday. I did a double, ran Saturday morning in the forest with my brother, about two hours, and we only got through about 18K in that two hours because it's singletrack and I don't think the GPS works half the

[50:51] time with the switchbacks going on. But over three long runs in the trails, 110K, that's running once a day, no doubles or anything like that, and it's good, I pulled up a little tight but not too much. What happened Tuesday? I was up at the Spit, Mike Shelley just decided to drop in for a session, even unfit he still knows how to put on the

[51:23] pace initially, we had the Gold Coast crew there, all the elite runners, I think Giordani just ran a sub-2 in the 800 on the weekend, so these guys are moving. I did my usual session, a two-minute effort with a one-minute float in between, but we didn't do it out and back this time, we did a 30-second turnaround and had to try to make it back on the two minutes. That was good for allowing me to run a bit

[51:54] easier on the float and pick back up with the fast runners, so I was purposely going over the top for myself, hard session, real fun with all the good guys there. I was sore after that, so when I went out Wednesday in the forest I got a bit of, I wouldn't say a pull, but something in one of the calves, my hips too, just felt sore all over. I had a bit of a stretch that

[52:26] night, still got through the run, had a stretch that night, then had a decision to make this morning, Thursday. We usually — I've been doing threshold down at Pizzey Park again with the faster guys — and I was thinking this isn't the smartest thing to do, I'm sore, this is a recipe for disaster. Everyone goes through this in their head, should I, shouldn't I, should I rest or is that the wrong thing to do?

[52:57] And the answer, to a degree, is you never really know. I still got out there this morning and ran, and for the first hundred metres of that threshold I was going to run quite conservative, maybe 3:45, 3:50, 4-minute K pace, just get through it and make it a run day. In the first 50 metres my body actually didn't

[53:28] feel too bad, after it warmed up for 20 minutes, got into it with the fellas, ran a little slower than usual but still pushed it, and by the time I got home my body felt amazing through the session. You just don't know, there's proof, you don't always know what's coming, you've got to err on the side of caution with injuries, but sometimes your body's just messing with you, mind playing tricks, and you've just got to get in and figure it

[53:58] out. Broad statement here — you know in your head, you know. What I mean is, speaking more for the average runner, when you're injured you'll go get the diagnosis, go to a physio or a doctor, get confirmation of the extent, or the rehab

[54:28] programme, but you do know, you'll know, that's not right, it's not coming good, you know your body better than anyone. And then sometimes you're letting a bit of soreness become something more, you lie down in bed at night and think, I probably just didn't want to

[54:58] do a hard session, I probably just didn't want to, it's like me, I hadn't really wanted to run fast, not that I couldn't, I just didn't want to and was finding reasons not to. But everyone's in the same boat, we all have these mind games around what running is. One thing I'm thinking about, getting into a bit more mileage, is comparing it to what I used to do in triathlon —

[55:28] even if I ran 110K in a week, the aerobic load of that in time is quite insignificant compared to the hours I trained in the past, as a triathlete you might be at 20 to 25 hours, and if you tried to run that many hours you'd be doing crazy kilometres. So purely from a lung and — for 110Ks, what's your time on feet? I'm guessing less than 10 hours, so that's not a lot of aerobic work

[55:58] compared to, say, a swimmer in the pool for an hour and a half, or even high school swimmers doing two-hour sessions, eleven of them a week. It's child's play from an aerobic point of view, but your legs are obviously going to hurt, so you've got to be careful with the kilometres. I'm toying with the idea of getting back on a road bike. When was the last time you rode one?

[56:28] I'm going to guess about six years ago, and that was only because I had to film the — the Brisbane, what's it called, the Bridge to Brisbane, no, the Brisbane Cycling Festival and the Gran Fondo, I filmed it from a GoPro the first year for Tourism Queensland, that's the last time I rode a road bike on the road. But I'm toying with the idea because I mountain bike a fair bit, but it's different, going up and down, a different bike, slower. I'm looking for that same

[56:59] legs, just pure aerobic, go out for four and a half, five hours, is that going to benefit my running given my background? When I used to run at the level I was at, I was obviously doing a lot of cross-training with it, I'm missing all that now, so how can I expect to be as fit as I was? Do you think you could get on a bike?

[57:29] I'm 50-50. Do you know the reason I don't ride? Safety, I really do, if I don't need to ride a road bike on the road and can ride my mountain bike instead, it's way more fun, I really do think it's a safety thing, different time of your life too. Speaking of safety, what did happen this week is I finally got my motorbike back, I blew up the engine, so shout out to Raceline Performance, the boys who fixed my bike — Tony Waters used to ride for Red Bull back in the day in motocross, he's got a race team for Husqvarna now, helps all the young kids, amazing to see, in elite sport, he's at the other end of it now, still racing well but also helping out young kids,

[58:00] got a few team riders, Husqvarna helps him out. Funny when you suddenly find yourself at that point, kind of like when you used to look at people who were 40 and think, that's so old, and now you're 40 and you're not old at all. Toddy's still killing it on the bike. He looked after my bike, so now I'm thinking, do I go riding this weekend, jeez, well, you've already got stitches in the nose, may as well add some to other parts of your body. We need to give a shout out to the Trail Kings too, since you're on their carnet.

[58:30] I shared it on my personal Instagram, I'll share it on the show page too. Do you want to talk about some kit? Let's get into the gear. We've got — you've got a little package in the corner for me too. Do you want me to start with the present, or a couple of things I noticed online? Let's start with the things online. Did you see ASICS in the Clouds this week? Have you been on Instagram, you couldn't have missed it, it got a pretty

[59:00] good bit of media coverage. It was — I did say this is the marathon, they launched a shoe, I can't remember exactly which one, but ASICS launched a shoe, took some of their runners up in hot air balloons and had them run a half marathon on a treadmill in the hot air balloon. I like it, but at the same time I'm wondering if it's trying too hard, I'm on the fence on this one.

[59:30] But then, they actually called it 'In The Clouds,' which is really, really close to IP infringement, given On Running calls their cushioning Cloud tech. It's for the Gel-Nimbus. I wouldn't run a marathon or half marathon in the Gel-Nimbus myself, I don't find you get enough back from them, that's by the by, but I hadn't thought about the IP infringement angle, that's interesting.

[01:00:01] Literally cloud running on the clouds, I would have thought On would have trademarked that, or anything around cloud, really close. Hopefully no one from On is listening and thinking that's a good point, we should make some calls about that. Well, I know what you're saying, is it trying too hard, but hey, guess what,

[01:00:32] Courtney, we're talking about it, so they've achieved their goal, the In The Beginning podcast is talking about the noise-makers, they've made enough noise for us to take notice. And really quickly, I saw — I haven't got this up on my page, Liam, but I saw this on Run.com this morning — Nike have put out a new patent, looks like an

[01:01:02] electronic fluid support control shoe patent. So you're talking about fluid movement, I'm trying to pull up the website, bear with me for a second. The premise, basically, is Nike has shown interest in incorporating some incredibly complex systems into future footwear, that could include fluid movement controllers and adjustable foot support pressure. Dumbing it down, as I read it, this seems to be AI in a shoe,

[01:01:35] looking at ways to allow the shoe to adjust while you're running based on your landing and foot patterns, focusing on fluid flow to adjust support in the shoe's sole, with some type of electronic system in it. I'd say this is a form of AI, if the shoe is making — I didn't take too much notice of it, just saw it this morning, but this is really interesting, this is innovation.

[01:02:06] It's huge, if you think of the carbon plate and what that did. I don't know if this is about speed or more about comfort, giving better benefits for recovery while training, but this is huge. Imagine it — let's play it out as a thought experiment — if you're running a marathon and suddenly Nike or any brand's shoe, while in a perfect world you're running the same cadence the

[01:02:36] whole time, the reality is your legs grow fatigued the longer you're on your feet. Imagine the shoe adapting to that fatigue as it sets into your stride length and running power, starting as a front-to-mid-foot shoe and by the end of the marathon helping you run on your heels as you start to break down. I should have done my homework better on this, but the diagrams and images I saw showed something

[01:03:07] on the side of the shoe that can suck liquid back — this is crazy, absolutely crazy. It would apparently also provide a connection between the shoe and an external power source when at rest, so it sounds like you charge the shoe. Didn't the Reebok Pumps used to do something like this, you'd pump it up? But that was with your finger, not with a return-energy system, kind of like F1 cars or cars these days with

[01:03:39] energy return in the braking system. This is something we should investigate a bit more, but there's clearly innovation happening in shoes beyond — we thought the Alphaflys were the peak. If this is true, it could just be a concept, they could just be getting ahead of the game, this could be a decade away, but it's super exciting. Keeping it on shoes, we're getting closer to the end, and this is the best part of the show, mate,

[01:04:11] I have presents, plenty of presents this week for you. Thank you, Salomon. Can I give you mine first, because I reckon mine's underwhelming by comparison? What do you got? I've had some running kit sent this week, some hats, and some singlets from a mob called Crest, I've got one of the hats on

[01:04:41] at the moment, Crest is based out of Sydney, just running kit, they sent some in, said throw these on, check them out, take them for a spin. We'll get back to them and let them know how they go. You know what I like about running caps — true story, I'll be honest, I've run for Red Bull for 22 years, every triathlon I ever did, pretty much since I was 18 or 20, had a Red Bull hat on.

[01:05:11] Over time, different brands — the Red Bull hats are for athletes only, they don't sell them, I didn't know that — one of the most common questions, if I had a dollar for everyone who said 'can I get one of those hats,' I'd have made more money than they probably paid me just giving away hats. But now, technology, even hats, has come so far, but we're not all

[01:05:42] runners, so some of the hats are like corduroy, and sometimes the hats they bring out for the year, I don't like them. There was a hat a few years ago with a packable brim that New Era did, and I thought it was the best ever, and then of course they stopped making it, just like with shoes. So I'm interested in trying these Crest hats, but maybe I can get a

[01:06:13] logo put on. I can't run in a Crest hat, but maybe with a logo. I'm looking for a manufacturer, what do you call them, white-label brands? White label, that's it, marketing speak, blank brands basically. Thank you, anyway, enjoy those, that's very nice. I'm going to go one better here, which is why I went first — I mentioned next week I've got the real present for you, because Salomon have just brought out a whole new range of trail shoes, mainly

[01:06:46] the trail shoes, for when we go down to the Golden Trail race, Salomon Golden Trail and kunanyi — no excuses, mate, you're going to be there in the elite of the elite of what you've got. There's no excuse, well there are excuses, but my shoes won't be one of them, they will not be one of them, thank you, Sal. In the meantime, it's a little bit of fun — we talked about Decathlon before, being like a French Rebel Sport, the Aldi of Rebel Sport, having a home-brand carbon-

[01:07:18] plated shoe, and from memory they were $250 or something, they weren't cheap. I was going for a run with a mate of mine, Andrew Pierce, a grade-A Gold Coaster when it comes to Strava, under his pseudonym, and he was wearing these shoes, they're called ONEMIX, have you ever heard of it? Never heard of it, I've heard of Little Mix,

[01:07:48] the all-girl group, but never heard of ONEMIX. And he said to me, I bought these, they're carbon-plated shoes, you wouldn't know the difference, if you want to save your $400 race shoes but still train in carbon shoes, this isn't a bad way to go. I laughed at him and said, mate, have a guess how much these cost, Liam? I'm guessing they'll save you about half of a pair of Alphaflys? I'm just looking it up now, $400 — $114, delivered to my

[01:08:20] door. What would you expect these to be like for $114? I'd expect them to be crap. So here's a test, we're not advocating for them by any means, but I was so interested after seeing him run in them and hearing he was, he's bought a few pairs. So he's a repeat customer, I thought, I have to buy Liam a pair. These are your size, even though

[01:08:51] I could wear them too, and I'm not going to lie, I've tried them on so they're not exactly dirty, but they're brand new. They're a 43, so half a size too big for me, they're your size, I've bought them for you, you've got those Alphaflys you're too scared to take out of the box, now I'm going to make you take these out of the box, because I want to know — let's start with the fact they're ugly as all hell.

[01:09:21] I don't mind wearing gaudy or bright, garish stuff, if you're watching us on video on Spotify you can see just how ugly these shoes are. There's a full — you can actually see through the sole of the shoe, I have no idea about these, but you want me to run in them? I want you to test them for us. What's with the crappy things on the side that say 42K, 21K, 10K, is that saying what you

[01:09:54] should run them for? They're an all-rounder, you can run your 10K, your marathon, in the ONEMIX. Do you know what, there's a bit of, which brand comes to mind — Saucony? They remind me a bit of Saucony, I think. I'm pretty sure Tim Vincent's running a similar shoe. He likes them? Forget how they look, we're about how they feel, mate, I want to know —

[01:10:24] so here's the question, when you try them, if we were to do a shoe review of all the top shoes, would you include these against the big brands? You've got to go and try them, I don't want to say now, next week I'll review the ugly shoe, and by next week you'll also have my proper gift, not my joke gift, this one's like a My Little Pony pastel thing.

[01:10:55] When it turned up in the mail you just pulled it out, it took two weeks to arrive from, I'm assuming, China. Will you be upset if I bring these back painted black? You can do whatever you want, it's a gift, Liam, I don't want them back, I want you running them, if I have to run in them you have to run in them. I'll have a jog in them at least, I want you to turn up to the Gold Coast Run Co threshold wearing these. Alright, okay, let's see how

[01:11:28] they go. Wrapping things up, we had some questions we didn't have time to get to, what I want to do one week is put those on the chalkboard. You've got one more thing? Don't hang up just yet. The question — and it leads into something bigger, worth calling out — someone asked me last week, can you bring a topic up this week, why triathletes

[01:11:59] usually run so well in running races when they probably do half the kilometres, roughly? The simple answer, what I talked about earlier, is you're doing so much aerobic work on the bike, which also trains your glutes and similar muscles, and then you're running kilometres on top of that. I'd argue some triathletes aren't just doing half the distance, I'd go as far as saying Olympic triathletes are running anywhere between 100 and

[01:12:31] 130K a week, plus riding on top of that fifteen hours, so they're building a crazy aerobic base. That's the reason they can operate like that, and if they've got talent as a runner, that just adds to it. Last weekend, the Paris Olympic gold medallist in triathlon, Cassandre Beaugrand, broke the women's French record, guess what time, Liam, over what distance — 5K road race, the women's Olympic triathlon

[01:13:05] champion ran 15:10, best 5K women's time in her, no — she ran 14:53. Close, 14:53, a triathlete running faster than the best pure 5K runners in France, just broke the French record, fastest ever French woman, won Olympic gold in Paris in triathlon. So if anyone's talking about triathletes not developing or being at the top end of elite sport, that's crazy talk. And if you want further incentive to track Alex Yee at

[01:13:38] the London Marathon this year, the gold medallist in the men's triathlon, that's why — 14:53, even when it was different shoes years ago, thirty minutes was a benchmark run for males in triathlon, and now you've got the top female running under

[01:14:09] 15 minutes, mate, mic drop on that, I think it's a good place to finish. That's super fast, super fast. However you're running today, I hope you're getting out there, whether it's super fast, super slow, or you're just running, enjoy it. I promise we'll get to the many more questions people are firing in, as well as some guests we have in the pipeline. I'd love to do an Ask Courtney Anything, I'd love to load up on these questions, so if you have any you want to fire in to Courtney, send them through, we're going to do an Ask Courtney Anything episode at some stage. I'm going to go chase Will — yeah, you go find Will Ashcroft, get him on — and I'm going to run in these hideous shoes you just handed me. See you all next week.

[01:14:41] See you next week.