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# EP 26 - WATCHING TV WITH DRUG TESTERS
- URL: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ep-26-watching-tv-with-drug-testers/
- Published: 2025-03-14T06:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-20T04:13:12.000Z
- Description: Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on marathon integrity, Olympics & 2032, Strava culture — recorded on the Gold Coast.
- Author: Courtney Atkinson
- Tags: Episodes, Main Feed, Marathon Training, Olympics, Strava, Running Training, #Import 2026-07-28 20:58

*Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on marathon integrity, Olympics & 2032, Strava culture — recorded on the Gold Coast.*

## Listen

Listen on [Spotify](https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/inthebeginningpodcast/episodes/EP-26---WATCHING-TV-WITH-DRUG-TESTERS-e300jsa?ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/REPLACE?ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com).

## Full transcript

Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps approximate. Hosts: Courtney Atkinson & Liam Flanagan.

**Read the full transcript** 

\[00:00\] In the beginning, episode 26 mate. How are you travelling? Because I'm knackered. It's funny — we're talking obviously about the cyclone in southeast Queensland here. We've just come out of it, the ex-tropical cyclone, as they're calling it now. But the anxiety is harder than the running. The fatigue of a week filled with anxiety is worse than any 60-70K week I've run over the last couple of months.

\[00:30\] If you're in southeast Queensland, you're probably sick of Cyclone Alfred. And if you're outside southeast Queensland, you're probably not really aware of exactly how — I wouldn't say devastating, because it was a huge weather pattern, but we were given so much notice by the local government, the council, everything, that it felt like we were bracing for this for a week.

\[01:01\] Well, we were. And tough luck if you don't want to hear about it, because you're about to. I agree — one thing's for sure, you're never going to trust the weather again. They were so certain when it was going to hit, where it was going to hit, how it was going to hit, and then it just went into disarray — it started doing circles out there, doing U-turns, and then when it hit, it didn't even cross the coast properly. You know what I found really interesting, more so with the TV news, was —

\[01:33\] — normally when you get devastation from cyclones up north, it happens and then pretty quickly it moves on, so then there's sun and they can get helicopters and drones up. But you noticed watching TV, there were no aerials of what was going on for nearly four days. That was an interesting observation, and what made me think, because the winds kept going, they had nothing to show except the Currumbin car park and some lady who looked like she was getting blown around on the beach — that was literally the

\[02:03\] weather for two days. It's been a really interesting experience for me covering it on radio — I've never covered a weather event like this before. Radio and podcasting is awesome, but it's not immediate, and I really learnt over the last week the value of radio in times like tropical cyclones, because of the immediacy. So what we had — did you lose power here?

\[02:33\] No, we were lucky. We're obviously right on a lake here. If you went across the other side of the lake, they didn't have power. So Doctor Ben, who lives across the other side, had power, but he was looking across the water at people without power. Is that crazy? We lost power for two to three days, two nights, three days without power. Thankfully our next-door neighbour had a generator and hooked our fridge up so

\[03:03\] we were able to keep food cool and frozen and all the rest of it. We had a little camp stove cooker we were using, and whatever — we were fine. But it was the loomingness, the weight, the bracing, the waiting — all of that physically exhausts you. And then on Sunday night there was a flood warning for where I live, for Currumbin, and Laura, a proper full-blown red warning — evacuate or —

\[03:34\] — get ready to act now. And at that point, did you suddenly start to worry? Oh yeah, I had as bad a night's sleep as I've had for a long time that night. I know logically where we are — if that floods, you're talking Noah's Ark type stuff, because we're basically geographically about the last place to become flooded.

\[04:04\] It's end-of-days stuff, but the fact that the suburb I live in had been given this warning, and my eight-year-old — because she's old enough to read now — she got really nervous, and I had to walk her outside and go, look, that's the level all the rain would have to reach to flood all of that, and it would have to come up all that high, and then on the front it would have to do this. Explaining it to her helped, because it calmed me down a bit. But I still went to bed that night with just an

\[04:36\] incredible sense of — well, I can't allow myself to fall into a deep sleep here, just in case. Just in case, yeah. So to get back to what we started with, it's been fairly taxing the last week, and then to turn up to work on the radio and try to talk about it with people — every time somebody called through on the show, you just got that sense of uneasiness and confusion. And I actually think the Gold Coast community held itself together really well

\[05:08\] throughout all of this. I think a lot of people are going to criticise how long we prepared and say we over-prepared, but that's what allowed it to be, I think, a pretty good outcome, because if it had gone the other way it would have been a disaster, and then everyone would have been glad we prepared. I thought about this on the weekend — if there are people who want to bang on about this being a bit of a storm in a teacup, that it was over-hyped, etcetera, etcetera —

\[05:38\] — that's fine, just opt out of all the notifications. Then next time one of these things happen, you won't know — it'll be a nice surprise for you. How many people do you reckon have battery-operated radios? Because I've had a lot of people say they literally got caught out — because we did lose power, I had my phone, and then I suddenly realised I can't charge it, and once that battery goes, that's my communication gone if

\[06:08\] you wanted to pick up either a battery-operated radio or a generator. Facebook Marketplace should be the place to do it this week, because I reckon there'll be people looking to offload the ones they bought in a panic. The radio was an amazing comfort over the weekend — we had it on 24/7 listening, getting updates, and I saw the real value of what radio offers as opposed to other forms of media. I was watching TV because we did have power, but I was thinking the whole time, looking at the

\[06:39\] map, that areas that didn't have power across the Gold Coast weren't getting the same information. I'm watching, thinking, where are you getting this from? We had the mayor, the deputy mayor, and Energex all on the show during this, and all their advice kept pointing to a website for information. And the response from a lot of people who called in was, I don't have power, I can't visit a website. Shout out to Bunnings — I had two things happen in the last five days, both locally here.

\[07:10\] The first one — I was stocking up on water. Last time I was out camping I busted my 20-litre water drum, so I thought I'd do the right thing and get a new one. There was still a 20-litre drum left at Bunnings just across the road here in Mermaid Waters when I went, and this was literally the day we were battening down. I was like, this is crazy — everyone's got their toilet paper and food, but no one's got the water drum. The second thing was, yesterday my lovely wife said to some of the

\[07:43\] neighbours here, "oh don't worry, Courtney will get his chainsaw out and fix the trees out the front." I hadn't used my chainsaw in about four years. I went to fill it up with petrol, took the air filter out, and it literally crumbled in my hands — so it didn't work. So now she's put me in it. A few other things were wrong with it too — I need a new chainsaw. You need a new chainsaw. I went over to Bunnings — there was a chainsaw of all things, you'd think it'd be a water container and a chainsaw

\[08:13\] everyone's worried about, not toilet paper and everything else. Now, I think there's levels to this, and I think you're on another level. So you reckon I'm a prepper? No — you're a capable prepper. Because I'm the every-person level — it's a bit like running, you're at the elite, semi-elite level, and I'm at the every-person level. So the every-person like me, we just prepped with bottles of water and tinned food. That was our level of prepping. The idea of getting out there

\[08:44\] with heavy machinery and removing trees is nonsense, absolute nonsense. Courtney's out there with big party bags of chips — I reckon that's how the average person preps, we don't go and buy actually useful things. Good to know for next time. So all in all, it was a torturous week. We're going to talk a bit about the running later, we'll talk about running weeks, but just to tease it — did you run? Yes, okay, I did run.

\[09:15\] We'll talk about that later. One great thing that happened while we were stuck inside and I did have power was Drive to Survive — the F1 Netflix series, latest season dropped on Friday. Do yourself a favour and watch it — no spoilers, but Max Verstappen wins the World Championship. You know what happens in that case, but to see behind the scenes like this — props to them, they were the originals. So many sports have copied it now, and I didn't realise how long

\[09:46\] they've been doing it — seven seasons. That series really recreated sport documentaries for everyone, no matter whether you're into running, NBA, basketball, whatever — everyone else is a copycat. The production company that did the original Drive to Survive must be multi-multi-millionaires by now, because a lot of other sports use that same UK production company to try to make their sports follow suit. Some have been done well, some

\[10:17\] have been done pretty average, right? Have you watched Full Swing? The golf one? Didn't watch that one — I think I tried the tennis one and didn't get through it, couldn't survive it. The NBA ones I can — Starting Five, and then there's another one on Netflix called Court of Gold, which follows the American basketball Dream Team. The running one, the Sprint one, was great, amazing — that transformed things, which I think we've maybe touched on when we were talking about

\[10:47\] how I wouldn't have known who was in the 200 metre final at the Olympics otherwise. It makes sports — but let's just remember Drive to Survive and F1 as the pinnacle of luxury sport, money in sport, and the original is still here. F1 this weekend? No, F1 today, as people are listening. I'll be in Melbourne. You'll be in Melbourne? Yeah. If you're listening to this on Saturday or Sunday, you'll be trackside.

\[11:17\] Trackside, exciting, first race of the year. Just quickly, I want to talk more about the F1, but quickly — how would a Drive to Survive series look around marathoning or trail running? Could you do it? Yes, I think you could. I think it's got to have some kind of top-end competition driving it, but really it's a storytelling process.

\[11:50\] Could you do it? Interesting — let me pivot and localise it a bit. On a smaller scale, do you think there's enough narrative, enough story, around something like a Gold Coast Marathon, or even more localised than that? Because with the Gold Coast Marathon you're talking about elites from overseas competing. Could you do it around the City2

\[12:20\] Surf? Could you do a miniaturised version? Certainly not on the scale of Drive to Survive. I think the one thing that really works in any of these — and I'm backtracking my original answer a little — is you've got to have the circus that goes with the sport. Sprint works so well because the personality in it is loud, almost egotistic. If you take your average distance runner — I'm generalising here —

\[12:51\] they're probably a lot more individual and withdrawn. Why do you think that is? You've been an Olympian — what sports carry certain egos? Why is it that distance athletes seemingly have less bravado? I'll answer, but even if you think about the Tour de France riders, there's a little bit of circus behind the scenes, and their series worked really well too, but the riders themselves aren't

\[13:21\] overly — are they like the sprinters, like F1? No, no. I'd say more so than middle- or long-distance runners, the sport has the circus — it's what goes with it, the events, and what creates the hype around it, more than the sport itself. But why couldn't distance running have that? Maybe it's a different type of proposition than the end outcome being about performance.

\[13:53\] We talked about Jelly Roll last week, Harry Styles — is it the celebrity-type runners that create a series, not the elite runners? My brain's raced off while you were giving that answer — not that I wasn't listening, but do you remember the Simon Pegg movie, Run Fatboy Run? It's an English movie about Simon Pegg's character essentially saying, I'm going to run the London Marathon.

\[14:25\] That's the basic premise. But my mind started racing on — could you do an almost mini version of Drive to Survive about a local parkrun, if you found the right characters and noise around it? Or could you create some sort of fictionalised story? Of course you could — you can make a story out of anything. Have you ever seen Bo Miles? I think — yeah, on YouTube. This

\[14:56\] is a bloke who picks up rubbish and makes it into a doco. The first time I saw him he was eating baked beans for 40 days or something. If you can tell a story, you can create a story out of anything. I really think, if we're talking Netflix-level now, you've got to have a circus of a sport — people are interested in the glam, the glitter. Stay with me for a second — could we put on a celebrity race, whether it be

\[15:29\] a 10K, a 5K, or a half marathon, and create that circus by going and getting run influencers who back themselves, the noisy ones, to participate — but also develop a rivalry between a couple of them. And also go and get some bigger names who might

\[15:59\] not be elite-level runners, or runners at all. I remember Hamish Blake did this amazing thing on their radio show years ago — Katie Holmes ran the New York Marathon, and the next day Hamish said he could beat her time, and he wasn't a runner at the time. So the next day they set it up, and Hamish tried to beat Katie Holmes's marathon time running around Albert Park in Melbourne.

\[16:31\] Did he beat her? I think he did, yeah. But that idea — if you got those characters and brought them into the running world with some sort of celebrity race-challenge doco — I think there's something in this, definitely, you know, mentioning City2Surf or a smaller race. But I'm not sure — what I do know is there's possibility, because more and more people are coming across into running.

\[17:04\] There has to be some interesting content out there about what's behind the scenes. What about White Lotus, have you watched this one — the new season? I've watched the first two, haven't watched any of this latest season, but I know it's set in Thailand. It's a nice spot, but the reason I bring it up is with this whole White Lotus hotel thing, being in these amazing locations, this

\[17:34\] one's particularly at a wellness camp — there's some kind of trend out there, wellness being the next big tourism status symbol. Not just where you go to do it, but that's where the high-flyers are going. I don't know what you'd have seen in the past as the perfect holiday — maybe it was ski holidays, maybe it was — no, snow fields, yeah. I'd also say boats, yachts or whatever. Wellness,

\[18:04\] wellness places being the new status symbol. There's quite a few around us here on this southeast Queensland–Northern Rivers corner. There's one up in Currumbin called Eden, not far from where I am, up the back of the valley. There's a bunch down in Byron obviously as well. It's perfectly on pace with everything else we see — non-alcoholic beers, non-alcoholic spirits. The non-alcoholic boom within

\[18:34\] the beer and spirits industry is bigger than it's ever been. The creation of run clubs — there'd be more run clubs than have ever existed in the history of the world. From a products-market perspective, I'd imagine that health and wellbeing market is more saturated than it's ever been, so it only makes sense the tourism industry embraces this too — high disposable income people. We think run clubs and running are

\[19:05\] booming, and it is. Do you still think general wellness people out there, just wanting to be healthy, are going and doing — I don't know, what do you do for your health besides running? No, no, we just run. Let me ask you this, Courtney — what else do you think people do for their health aside from running? Well, my mind went to 60 Minutes — you know when you see someone on there telling how they're going to live to 60,

\[19:36\] maybe that's the guy I'm thinking of, with the guy trying to live forever. They're doing stuff underneath infrared beds — and that's when I think "wellness." That's where my mind goes, like ice baths being probably the entry point. Yes, that's the pure entry point — hot and cold, ice, hot and cold plunges, saunas — that feels like the gateway drug. What are a few places on the Gold Coast — you've got Rigs Recovery, is it CP3, or there's another gym, R3 or

\[20:07\] something like that. I went to Soak one day with my wife, and it's nice to sit in a pool, but you can do that at a resort too. I understand the whole recovery-centre thing is now accessible — it's made it accessible to everyone. So you hear about Starting Five, seeing all the basketballers with their own masseuse, ice bath and everything, all at their home — that's what elite athletes get to do. Now everyone gets a slice of that if they go to one of these centres,

\[20:40\] so if ice bath is the entry point, then infrared, then they've got these new saunas with different colours and buttons, and then I'm sure it scales up into peptides — I was going to say the next step up is the IV drip places, the fluid-replacement places, and I have friends who've gone to these places. I'd like to investigate it, I'm genuinely curious, don't know if I'm keen to try one, but I'm curious about

\[21:11\] the places where you go — a lot of people go there either because they're athletes or because they're hungover after a big weekend and need to replenish. When we were up in Japan racing, because it's excruciatingly hot there in summer, the first thing we'd do was get off the course, get to the medical tent and say, I'm dehydrated, I need the drip — put the drip in. It was just water, but it felt amazing.

\[21:42\] See, I don't think they're allowed to put these drips into people anymore — just getting hydrated as quick as possible for recovery after such a hard race. That's illegal now, you can't have a drip. Why did they make it illegal? I remember the Brisbane Lions got in trouble for this — back in the Simon Black and Michael Voss dominant years, with Akermanis and everybody, they had them sitting on the bench with IV drips. That's full-on, but

\[22:13\] for recovery it makes sense — if you're playing in hot conditions and want to recover for the next day as quick as possible, you want fluids in your body ASAP, same theory. I don't know the exact background, but I'm assuming it's got to do with needles — any type of injection, self-administered or not, has to be notified. At Olympic level or in those sports, they get drug tested.

\[22:44\] From my understanding — and I've been out of it for a few years now — any needle you inject needs to be notified. So, someone's still getting drug tested — did you get tested down to a fine level throughout your career? It was normal. What was that experience like? It was completely normal, pretty much since I was a

\[23:16\] teenager. You'd have to fill in an hour each day, in a digital system, where a drug tester could find you, and you had to be at that location. If you're not there when they come knocking, it's a strike — three strikes. How did you manage that? Different sports, it's easier or harder. If you're travelling for legitimate purposes, sure, but day to day it was more challenging.

\[23:46\] The way I went about it was, I'm going to be at home after dinner 90% of the time — that's when I knew I'd be there. If you're a swimmer and you know you'll be at the pool every morning from 5:00 to 7:00, it becomes a bit easier, because you're going to be there every morning in that window. If you get up and get sick, it's a game of chance — if you remember to change the time, you probably could. If you don't, the likelihood

\[24:17\] of them turning up in that hour is pretty unlucky, but that's the reason there are three strikes. In some periods those three strikes have probably been used for sinister purposes. But did you ever get a strike? No, I don't think I did — never had a strike. But I do recall — so you asked what it was like — I'd have two people turn up at my front door, ring the doorbell, and when you heard it at 7:30 you'd think, oh no, especially after a big

\[24:49\] day and you're dehydrated, because they could be there with you till 9pm because you've got to pee. So the first thing I'd do, sit at my kitchen table — I'd get blood drawn. Once that was drawn, the nurse could leave, take it home in a little ice-packed bag, send it off to the lab, and then the other guy would wait to see me pee. And how did that work?

\[25:19\] Literally the toilet was to my left — I'd have to keep the door open, turn to the side, and let him have a look. You had to — no choice, he needs to see the fluid, right there, needs to see the exit, because there's obviously been instances of people using bags, or someone else's urine, and all that. But that's as true and as honest as I can

\[25:52\] give it. And that could happen — I could go six months and no one would turn up at that door. It was always targeted in a certain way, like I'd be pre-season before I'd go overseas, and I'd generally know I'd get one or two knocks, just to make sure we weren't doing anything in the off-season. Would that have been across the board, or because you were one of the better athletes, could you expect it more consistently? Yeah, I think in Australia at least — I can't speak

\[26:22\] for around the rest of the globe — but here it was always targeted at the top performers, the ones who were going to compete overseas. I don't know if it's about protecting Australia in a way, or protecting the sport. Yeah, yeah — so they're making sure they're testing the ones actually going off to compete overseas, because that's the reality. If a battler in any sport — that's a feeling, I don't know, I really don't know, but I

\[26:52\] think it's a feeling probably shared amongst the common public. We see it as rules for some — it's very easy to punish someone harshly at the lower level of a sport, because it's not seen as much of a casualty. I don't mean this harshly, just in reality. Whereas if the number one in any sport in the world gets done, that's a black mark on the entire sport. If you talked to someone like Grant Hackett, he was getting done at the Miami pool at that set 5 to 7am period.

\[27:23\] Yeah, the testers would turn up at swim pools all the time because then they could get five for one, like a bargain — the agency probably didn't have to pay them triple time, they'd just knock them out one after another. And it's always easier in the morning, around fluids. Then the second period, if you performed well at a race — at least in triathlon, at World Cup or world championship level — the top three would generally be automatically sent to the

\[27:57\] room, and then they'd take maybe two or three others randomly from the next 10 or 20\. Did you get to know the testers, the same people? 100%. I should know his name, but I recall he came down from Mount Tamborine, and the reason I remember that was his bag with all the vials and everything in it, these foam containers, everything marked and ticked off.

\[28:27\] When you open the containers, there's a seal on it — you break the seal, there's a process to make sure everything's in the right order, and when you seal it back up you put your name on it. But he always had red dirt on his bag, because up at Tamborine you've got that real nutrient red dirt, and I reckon he must have kept the gear under his house or something. I remember thinking, mate, from Tamborine — and I apologise if there are people listening going, Liam, move on, there's other things to talk about, but I'm fascinated by

\[28:58\] this, because it's not something I'll ever experience. What's the vibe like between you both, or between the three of you — is it a "hey Courtney, how are you going, come on in, come on in guys"? I suppose it depends who you are. I was always relatively nice, offered a drink and whatever, but there's been times I've watched TV for a few hours with the drug testers next to me, as a family, my wife would sit there too, and —

\[29:30\] — you're just watching a show or a movie together? Yeah, more than that, you just go on with your night or whatever you're doing, and the reality is once they cite you and tell you you're being tested, they can't let you out of their sight. Even if you said, "I've just got to go upstairs to check something" — no, he'd walk up with me to the wardrobe. It's like a tagger in AFL — once he's tagged you. If you're at a race and after the race, and triathlon's a unique sport in that you're out there

\[30:00\] more like cycling, where you can move around, or you want to warm down, which you often do after a race, you could run, but you'd have to run within eyesight of the tester. If you run off, effectively that's — guilty, right? He's not going to catch you. Well, he's not going to catch you, but you're guilty. So you'd warm down in a 100-metre stretch, or on a bike doing circles or whatever it was. But yeah, man, he'd just sit down and watch TV

\[30:30\] with you. This went on for 15 years — I probably went through three different main testers in that time, and yeah, you got to know them. They'd walk in, and you'd think, you just want it to be done. But they're doing their job, right — they're doing their job. This is so fascinating. I mean, Lisa would have gone through this more than me — Lisa used to joke about the fact that she can't remember not being tested privately, because she was 14 when

\[31:00\] she made the Olympic team, and that was the end of it — from a testing perspective, she was tested so regularly ever since. It's fascinating, I don't even know how we got here — we were talking about wellness and IV drips and all the rest of it. Anyway, that's as honest as I can be about drug testing, nothing private about it, put it that way. Great chat, loved it. Now, do I need to defend myself to the Brooks lovers out there? You do, you do — you're getting called out hard, and I'm coming, I'm coming.

\[31:32\] I'm getting called out too, Liam, because I was also having a bit of a dig — not at Brooks, we just didn't see this coming. I now understand why Brooks is the number-three-rated shoe on Strava, why they have such loyal fans, and not just because I like the brand Brooks. People are defending Brooks like they're going to battle, like they're in Braveheart running onto the field. I did not see this coming — I thought people who

\[32:03\] wore Brooks were too old to work social media or listen to podcasts. I'm doubling down — I was down at the Spit running this morning and saw a guy with a really high-stacked Brooks on. It's a bit like when you buy a new car and think no one else drives that brand, then you see them everywhere. I'm seeing Brooks everywhere now — this Hyperion GTS 2\. We've been talking about the Ghost a little bit, and that's what's getting us flack, because people love their Ghosts. Actually, I'll take that

\[32:34\] back, Brooks lovers — Brooks lovers love their Ghosts too. But this Hyperion GS 2, it's like their race shoe — yes, and I've had a few people writing in about this one being their race shoe that they love too. Look, I still think they're boring shoes, and I'm staying on that. I'm with you. I don't think anyone's — I don't think Brooks is going to be sending us a pair

\[33:05\] to try anytime soon. However, if you think about it, that's the best thing they could do, Liam — be boring, no, send you a pair of shoes to try and change your mind. That's the only thing that's going to change my mind. You want to challenge me, send them my way, Brooksy. Look, I can't love every shoe, there's too many shoes to love, too many shoes to try, too

\[33:36\] many shoes to love. I don't get Saucony — and I got checked on the pronunciation. How's it meant to be pronounced? Sokonee? Sokonee. So-kuh-nee. Sokonee. Oh, Sokonee. I don't know if that's right either, but we did get corrected — I've always said Saucony, I'm just saying Saucony, maybe it's Aussie slang for it. Where's Saucony from — if it's from Japan I'll start saying it differently. I don't know, I'm going to guess American. Anyway, I've never run in Saucony either, so I

\[34:07\] haven't — like I said, I raced for a few, when I say raced for them, like being paid, pretty much paid. First one ever was Reebok. Cool — so Brad Bevan, I was managed by the same company, yeah, the same one who managed "the Croc."

\[34:37\] In the early days I was managed by the same company who managed the Croc, so I got a bit of a hand-me-down deal on that one as a junior. Not really into running shoes much these days, are they? Not really, they pivoted towards CrossFit in a very big way. But I think really early days you had Nike and Reebok as the big two. That's it, yeah. So the Reeboks I had originally — all I can remember from my early shoes, going back to my teenage days, they were always a fluro orange or fluro pink. You could never just say I want black or white,

\[35:07\] it would always be fluro — that was Reebok. I think the next brand I went into was Saucony, then I ran in Nike for a long time — I wasn't paid by Nike, I'll be completely upfront, but I was given Nike gear, and that's probably why I talk about shoes the way I do now — they supported me for a long time through a period where I wasn't necessarily being paid, but I was wearing Nikes, and still to this

\[35:38\] day, if I were to go grab a shoe and it wasn't a Salomon, my next pick at this stage would probably be a Nike. I've just jumped onto Reebok's running shoe page — it's interesting because they don't really look like they're competing much in the running shoe market anymore, but they do have this thing called the Floatride, which almost looks like the On style of shoe. It's

\[36:08\] kind of a running shoe because they've got a lot of vintage — I was looking at a vintage pair of Reebok the other day. That's turning it from a distance — yeah, it's that kind of waffle sole, the kind that would split with the models almost like a vertebrae on a spine, the way it would peel off the road. I don't know how that would go these days. But yeah, then Reebok, Nike, and then I went through a long period, obviously New Balance Japan was the main thing, and then Salomon. So I've run in a

\[36:42\] fair reasonable range of shoes. You've run in a heap of shoes. And what were the weird ones — oh, Newton, in there. Newton, I didn't even think of that — that was when Newton first came to Australia, off the back of New Balance. I didn't even remember that. The Courtney Shoe Museum is going to open one of these days, I can't wait to explore it. But yeah, so Brooks — love you, Brooks, happy to have a conversation. If you're a Brooks runner and you see me run past, you can flip me the bird, that's fine, that's okay.

\[37:12\] I'm on board with it. New York Marathon — oh, this is wild, so they got 200,000 applicants, which means only two to three percent of the people who wanted to run actually got accepted. Are you across the running standards, the qualifying times? No, give me a lay-down. I've got a mate, Ben, who's qualified — he's in, he'll be racing there this year.

\[37:42\] Lucky guy, or well, tell me how it works. He's in the 45-49 age group and ran a 2:51 at Gold Coast last year. His qualifying time for his age group for New York was a 3:10 for 45-49, so he's well and truly qualified, comfortably in there. So when you apply, your time matters, you submit a qualifying time, and then is there a bit of a random draw?

\[38:13\] Yeah, and then I think, and this is probably the case with Boston as well and other marathons where it's hard to get in, they want it to be the best — it's not a meritocracy, sorry, it's not a "everybody gets a turn," not participation medals, it is a meritocracy — you're there on merit. Ben's told me the qualifying time for his age group was 3:10, but it's actually faster than that, it's 3:05 for the 45-49 age group. That's a solid qualifying marathon time, you'd be —

\[38:45\] would you be in that one? Are you 40-44? No, I'd be in that one — for my age group, 40-44, my qualifying time is 2:58, so you'd need to bring a few minutes down. The fastest, 18-34, is the fastest qualifying age bracket, and that's a 2:53\. So essentially if you want to run New York and you're under 50, you need to be running a sub-three-hour marathon. And I'm going to say, with all of

\[39:16\] those three times you just gave me, you need to be a marathoner in the sense of being all in on running a time. Now, you can get there via a fundraising manner too, there's other ways in, but if you want to enter and win a spot on merit, it's time-based. Now, I haven't done my homework on this, but I'm sure if you keep entering year after year, you probably increase your chances. Just quickly, I'll give you some of the women's times too, because they're slightly different to the men's. 45-49

\[39:47\] is a 3:38 — so it's a significant adjustment. 40-44 is a 3:26 marathon, 35-39 is a 3:15 marathon, and 18-34 for women is a 3:13 marathon. So if you're a solid marathon runner as a female, your chances are a lot higher. Interestingly enough, if you're 80-plus male, your qualifying time is a sub-five-hour marathon — a 4:55, and that's

\[40:19\] at the age of over 80\. And if you're over 80 as a female, you've got to break 6:35 — under 6.5 hours. There you go, New York. Have you run the majors? You've run London, that's it — I don't think I've ever run Sydney. Look, I'm a box-checker runner, I'd love to run all the majors, I'd love to tick them all off. Does that drive you for the time — is that part of when you're thinking, I've got a goal time?

\[40:50\] I haven't thought about breaking three hours because I want to qualify for these other marathons — sub-three hours in my head is very much a mark I just want to get under. It's just a mark. Interestingly, and I'm annoyed at myself for just remembering this, I saw an Instagram post during the week from an experienced trainer talking about the idea of the value and importance of

\[41:20\] a marathon being diminished by this running boom — the idea that you see people signing up for multiple events throughout a 12-month calendar, they might run three different marathons, five other events, and their year becomes a list. His take was that if you're setting yourself the target to run a marathon, part of it is about the pursuit of that event, that

\[41:53\] singular moment, that one thing you're training for, that you're identifying and spending six months leading up to. And you think about the elites — they might race twice a year. And the idea is that because of popularity and the running boom, it's diminishing the achievement of a marathon, because everyone can just go out there and get through it, not everyone, but a lot of people. Does that make it worth any less?

\[42:23\] Do you run a marathon, or do you just make a marathon? We've talked about this — I think there's two sides to this, because there are a lot of runners who are in it for a completely different reason than trying to run a time. Sure, their goal is to make a marathon, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, to be applauded. But I do hear you,

\[42:56\] around — because I saw this happen in triathlon. I'd been around long enough to see this with Ironman, because Ironman, when I began, was this pinnacle — if you could race an Ironman, there was a progression, you started at sprint distance, went to Olympic distance, maybe cracked a half, then went to Ironman. Now you just find people go, I'm just ticking off an Ironman, I'm going to do an Ironman. You'd

\[43:27\] work in an office block in Sydney or Melbourne, walk in and say "I did an Ironman," and half the office would turn around now and say "I did an Ironman" too — half the finance department did an Ironman this year. So what's the new Ironman then? What's the

\[43:58\] new marathon? It became this idea of how far can you run — 100K trail run, and then the miler, sorry, 160K, the longer you could go, that was seen as more merit. We've talked about this, I've challenged before — so what happens next? Because we can't just keep going further. HYROX? I don't know, I don't know, I think it probably

\[44:29\] is. It's — again, there's nothing wrong with this, we sit here trying to find things to talk about each week. You've got to find something if you're driven to do running or events by wanting to be able to talk about what you're doing — you need to find something new, or up the ante each time. If you're not driven by time, then what you find is that whether it's the 10K, a certain triathlon, a time trial on a push bike, someone's just trying to improve. Their goal is trying to improve

\[45:00\] first. My goal is trying to do as much as I possibly can, experience-wise. But I also want to do an Ironman just to take it off my list, so I can talk about it with the finance guys. What side of the fence are we talking about — anyone listening, what side of the fence do you sit on? Are you driven to do what you're doing by trying to improve your time, or are you driven by more events, longer events? I'm a foot in both camps, because

\[45:33\] I'm really looking forward to this twelve-week block challenge of getting myself ready and having a crack at a sub-three-hour marathon. I've done a marathon, I know what it's like to finish one, I know what it's like to struggle through one, but I still want to go back because I want to challenge myself time-wise. But then, for example, when we go down to kunanyi for the Salomon Golden Trail race, I'm not trying to win it — I've never done it before, I'm running that for the experience, that's a new experience.

\[46:03\] I'm running that for the experience. Same thing when I take on an Ironman, which I'd like to do in the next couple of years — I'm not racing it for a time, although I'll train with a time in mind, I'm racing it for the experience, and if there's an opportunity to race it somewhere I'd like to go, that's an added bonus. So I'm very much pushing myself for a PB at all times, but saying yes to experiences as well. I'm firmly about

\[46:35\] experiences too — the distance doesn't really affect me at all, in the sense that if the experience was right and it was a multi-day event, I'd be all in; if the experience was right and it's a unique 5K event, I'd want to do it too. For me it's about what's new, at this stage at least. And that's because you've spent 20-plus years chasing PBs and being time-

\[47:08\] focused, and I'm sitting here going, I don't think that's the right way to be — I've reached a point where that's how it is for me. But I still firmly sit on the idea that I'd want to be improving times, I'd want to race if I could be 100% eat, sleep, and run. That was one of our great tangents, by the way, we really raced off on some stuff, and we probably needed it today — we're a bit light on after everything that's been going on this week.

\[47:39\] But we've done well not to be talking about cyclones and weather patterns and tropical lows the whole time. Well, what about your run — we're talking about cyclones and running. Let's talk run weeks. Did you run? I ran once — sorry, a lie, I ran twice, I think, for the week. If you're talking total kilometres, I think I ran about 24-25K. I got a couple of runs in before the weather really turned. I did a 12K run on the Saturday, which was one of the heavy days.

\[48:15\] Saturday, Sunday. I ran 2K to meet Whippet, and we ran 4K out into the teeth of the wind along the Oceanway, and 4K back. The 4K into the wind we were running at 5-minute pace, and the 4K back with the wind as a tailwind, without changing our effort at all, was a 4:30 pace — so 30 seconds a kilometre from the wind. She was amazing —

\[48:46\] should've gone for a PB. That's what my brother-in-law said too, we were saying today's the day to go start at Burleigh and run down to Currumbin and get yourself a sub-18-minute 5K. I saw Jordo, who's part of Gold Coast Run Co, and does the Journeyman podcast with Tim Vincent — they went out to try and do a PB, and he did, I think he ran a 2:45 back with the wind. That's not his PB though, so he can run quicker, but they were having a bit of fun with it.

\[49:17\] Did you see anyone else out running in it? Lots, really lots. The irony was, I'd been on radio encouraging people not to go out — that was my next question — and then I went and did exactly that. It was funny, because as we turned around to head home, we got to a point on the Oceanway and both of us went, that tree wasn't there on the way out. One of the trees had come down across the Oceanway as we were

\[49:48\] running — so there was probably reason enough not to be out in it. I thought about that idea, when you're running — did you get out in it? I did, but I thought about whether I should be going out running at all. I'm comfortable running in some pretty heavy stuff, the rain and wind don't bother me, trees bother me, sure, you probably don't want one falling on you, but I was in that dilemma of should I do the right thing and stay home, but I really wanted to run. That first day, it would have been Friday, I think.

\[50:19\] The first day, when the winds and rain were bad and we were told to stay inside, I got on my treadmill, doing some K reps, and then it started going haywire — the elevation kept jumping up to 25 and back down. What was happening was my sweat was getting in behind the control panel, and me being silly, I ripped it up to look at what was going on and of course ripped all the cables out. So no treadmill for the rest of the week.

\[50:49\] So then I thought, okay, I can't get out running yet, I'll get on the bike, get on the ergo. So I did two days of really good strength ergo work — haven't ridden a mountain bike or been on an ergo for God knows how long, can't even remember. I've done myself no favours running at the moment either — what have you done? I've aggravated my hip flexors, let's say.

\[51:19\] I don't think there's anything majorly wrong, but — oh no, another good piece of not-advice, it's what I just did, that's so silly, like we always say — don't do anything new, or what your body's not used to. I went back and thought, I've got certain ergo sessions I'm used to doing, so the first day I did some 3-minute reps just to break it up, small chain ring,

\[51:50\] in a decent enough gear, thinking that would warm me up, not going too hard. The next day I got in there and did descending gears in a strength-effort workout — 10 minutes in the big chain ring top gear, 9 minutes in the second gear down, a little bit harder, 8 minutes in the next gear down, until I'm literally grinding in like a 53-13 or whatever. I didn't pull up great from it.

\[52:23\] And then, just to top that off, the next day — the wind had hit, the cyclone crossed over Moreton Bay or wherever, and then the next night was the night we had the flood watch. The wind was coming in really strong on Saturday night, and Sunday morning I went to the window out the back and it was blowing a gale. I thought, probably not the time to run, but Doctor Ben and my brother said no, we're going. So I did run along the beach —

\[52:54\] I was out there for two hours. The worst part was running down to the beach, through all the corridors where the wind funnels through the streets, that was a nightmare. Once we got on the beach it was actually quite fine, and at that stage the danger had kind of passed. The other reason I did go for one other run during it all was — I think I did about 6.5K — I couldn't stop looking up at the power

\[53:24\] lines, and I said, what are you doing, like really, what are you doing. Since then, off the back of the weekend, on the Monday just gone, I had a really nice 15K run where I threw in some 2K efforts trying to run at that required sub-three-hour marathon pace, just to change the run up and stop it being a Monday five-minute-K-pace run. But — I've started a list, Courtney,

\[53:55\] a "do not eat before running" list, right. These are things you should not eat — learnt by experience. This is my list, I'm going to keep updating it as I go, but there are only three things on it at the moment. First of all, just for me, McDonald's sausage and egg muffins —

\[54:28\] there's a spice in that sausage. You go sausage and egg? Oh, bacon and — get out, I can't remember the last time I had bacon and egg. Well, maybe I've learnt from experience with sausage. Jump in the comments, people — bacon, egg, or sausage and egg? No, no cheer, you think every day, wow. Okay, no, I'm a sausage and egg guy. I had one before a run a while back and I have a distinct memory of it repeating on me about 3K into the run.

\[55:00\] I can understand that. Sausage in general, probably. There you go — if you fried up a — even the Nippers barbecue one, yep, sure. The next thing on the list is — this one's from the night before, apparently stays in the gut for 20 hours or something — the Zambrero burrito. Really? I can handle burritos, it's on my list, see, and this is the thing. Did you get like a spicy

\[55:30\] pork one? You've got to give more information here — I got a chicken burrito, with all the trimmings, no jalapenos, so none of that spice stuff was in there, I do go the chipotle sauce, but that's it, no. It's off the menu for me. They're always a solid pairing, and this isn't the small one, a regular size —

\[56:00\] a regular size, yeah, you get it from Taco Bell or Guzman y Gomez or wherever, there's a lot in it, good weight. So that's on my list. And the latest item added, as a result of this most recent run, is the humble apple. An apple? Yeah, it's acidic, it's the fibre — it's the fibre combined with water, it's a runner's colonic for me. I wouldn't have put the other two together, but the apple I understand — race day, if I

\[56:34\] combine it — it's like when your chemistry teacher did that thing where the flask bubbled over like a volcano — you take water, apple, and me running, and it's a recipe for a poo-jogger incident. So apples are on my list, they're out, can't eat them before runs. Bananas are still fine. Overnight oats are okay too. But those three things are officially on my do-not-eat-before-running list.

\[57:05\] Well, there you go — I'm trying to think what wouldn't I eat before a run, I think my gut's pretty good on most things. When you mentioned the burrito, that's where I went with it, the hot stuff, like a pesto — if I had a pesto pasta and tried to run, I'd feel that come up, it's not the food itself, it's whatever the spice or

\[57:35\] acidity level is, whatever the extra ingredient is that's strong. See, I'm also not a coffee drinker before running. Oh really? Yeah, coffee races through me too, and I know 95% of people are going to say, Liam, it's the magic pill — if you need to go to the toilet before a run, a consistent morning coffee does the job. But how long — I need a time frame. I need information, straight information.

\[58:07\] Well, that's a question we can ask, but I'm talking that coffee goes in within 20 minutes — even quicker. You needed the coffee when the testers used to turn up at your door, though — you shouldn't have been drinking coffee. Well, I don't need to give them a stool sample, mate, we're not talking about that. I don't think they'd appreciate it. Can you imagine, when you're really busted and you're —

\[58:42\] where I'm going with this — hey, let's not sit on this any longer. Anyway, that was my week, that's my list of things I can't eat before running. So you're running, but I'm a bit concerned about your hip flexors. I'm a little bit concerned, because down at the Spit this morning we did some fartlek, usual Tuesday fartlek, and there were some trees

\[59:14\] down over the path, all over the place, we were dodging them, which is fine. Then suddenly there was a "road closed" sign, but we were actually on the trail — we went straight past the sign, and then realised about 400 metres later there was a lake of water there. So we just ran back and forth. I wasn't comfortable, not injured, but not comfortable at all, and I nearly cramped in the hamstring right before we sat down here.

\[59:44\] But it's just — like we said, I did something at an intensity I'm not used to and haven't done for a long time. Of course the response was going to be soreness, hurting yourself, whatever it is. Now it's on the run sheet. But I can't believe you're bringing this back, I thought we'd killed this off — we had, but the WTF mentions came across my emails, some people were saying — let's run through them quick. The first one is from

\[01:00:16\] Teton Valley in the US — it's literally a ski jump race, a timed race with people being pulled by horses. Ski-joring, it's called — is it called ski-joring? The Teton Valley ski-jor. You're telling me you're not a fan of this, but I like this one. Oh, you do like this one? No, no, I like this one — I love this one. He's got horses pulling him and he's getting flung over those jumps like no tomorrow. We'll share it on the Instagram Stories, but that one always —

\[01:00:46\] you can see it's kind of like water skiing in a sense — how in slalom water skiing you go round the poles, but what you notice in this video is he's actually collecting rings along the way, it's almost a cross between slalom skiing and Mario Kart. There's a lot going on. Did you see Benny Hennett with his kids playing in the storm waters, literally on a 4x4, getting pulled along? This reminded me of that — he's getting pulled and full send, I'd love to do this, I'd love to have a crack at it.

\[01:01:17\] I'm on board. The second one — this gets into the world records where I'm like, what is going on. The world record for making a peanut butter sandwich — a young guy doing it, but it's a piss-take of some lady beating him. He's obviously got rules for making the quickest sandwich, buttering it, doing all that, and she's got the peanut butter in her mouth, drops it on the bread, whacks it together.

\[01:01:50\] Ryan Kelso shared this — it makes you sick, but I'm like, what needs to be going on in your life to go, I am going to make a world record out of making a peanut butter sandwich. I'll jump ahead too, because when you talk about why the hell these world records are being made, we've got the world marathon record on a wind turbine now — you and I disagree on this, because you actually like this. I think this is so dumb.

\[01:02:25\] I think it's so dumb — a marathon around the observation deck of a wind turbine, and the time's not even that impressive, 4 hours 21 minutes, you could do that on the ground. Yeah, but you weren't impressed by Nike putting their runners up on the London Eye — what's the difference? That's a promo video, that's something cool, that's marketing. This is boring, I'm not that impressed by it. This is just a typical case of

\[01:02:55\] making stuff up. I do have a question — for the sake of doing it, did he go the whole way around, one way? I didn't go that in depth, I just saw — what I'd say is if he changed direction, that's cheating. If you're committing to running it on a turbine going one way, fine. Do you reckon if it's smooth it'd be shaky, easy as hell? Michael Richards shared that one. Off the back of what we'd seen earlier in the week, which we weren't ever going to bring

\[01:03:25\] up again — a guy was doing a world record marathon around a bloody roundabout. I know we're giving fuel to the fire here, but this should be outlawed. I'm going to set the world record for a marathon in a phone box, choking up and down — it's never been done before, you know what I mean. Off the back of, you know, the work-treadmill shows —

\[01:03:56\] yeah, a marathon in a Zoom meeting world record. Do you have to be in the Zoom meeting the whole time? Got to be in the meeting the whole time, so you can't really — that's a long meeting for me. We're just talking absolute crap at the moment, but the one that is good, is a sport called Taser ball — playing soccer with an oversized ball, kind of reminds me of a video game, but they've got proper tasers on them, tasering each other as they play soccer, no —

\[01:04:27\] have you ever been electrocuted? I've had a little zap, but I wouldn't say I've been electrocuted — the biggest jolt I've had was when I touched an electric fence. I mean, similar to that, but this looks — I don't ever want to get tasered, Liam, this looks terrifying but also really good fun. I wouldn't want the taser turned up — imagine the anxiety going into a sport like that,

\[01:05:00\] knowing everyone, including yourself, has got a taser on and you're going to get zapped. Have you seen there's a similar video of people playing futsal, indoor soccer, all wearing almost an ankle-bracelet type thing around their thighs, strapped to an electric shock, and there's people sitting on a bench zapping people at random? It's one of the funniest clips on YouTube.

\[01:05:30\] Okay, so now you've actually brought this whole segment to a point — what would be interesting, talking about world records or whatever in running, is everyone wearing a zapping dog collar, running, and the crowd having control. A track race with zappable — and the crowd can control it, so if you're winning by too far, they just start giving you a jolt so you can't run as

\[01:06:02\] quick, evening it out with electricity. Do you know what my idea was just then? My idea was everyone has the collars on, and the zap kicks in after a certain time — so it's a time thing, if you want to run a PB, otherwise you're going to get zapped. Anyone can self-manage that. You know what I've realised what we're doing right now?

\[01:06:33\] We're designing Squid Game. We are designing Squid Game — let's move on before we keep designing other TV shows that already exist. Ryan Kelso sent one of them, and he also asked us both about our top three spills. I don't have three, but let's see what your worst falls are — can you recall falling while running, because a lot of people have been through this at some point. What's your worst fall? I haven't had a lot of really intense falls, I've had a couple of trips here and there on trails, classic clipping of

\[01:07:06\] the toe, down onto your hands, grazes there. One memorable one does come to mind though — I was running around Palm Beach near my place not that long ago, after rain, and absent-mindedly, like a bike rider taking a corner, I planted my left foot as I tried to take a left turn, straight onto a slick bit of footpath. Went down, skin off knee, shin, thigh, shoulder.

\[01:07:39\] It was a speedy slide, that real up-and-down. There's nothing worse running urban, when you trip over the gutter, or even worse, jaywalking, running across, and then something happens when it rains — my suburb around Mermaid Waters has all these old tiled driveways, and you run onto them from people listening will definitely know this one, you're running, trying to pick up the pace or

\[01:08:10\] whatever, you're on the good concrete and then you hit that next surface and it's like ice-skating for three metres, then you're back on the next surface, then the next. Even the painted lines on roads when it's wet, I avoid them, I find them slicker. What's your biggest fall? You probably had some decent ones off a bike, didn't you? Yeah, but let's keep it to running — probably the worst one, the one that hurt the most, was when we began the podcast and I was injured already, and then I

\[01:08:42\] tripped on a rock going down the little chute at Nerang. It was such a small little thing, caught the toe, and it was a single track downhill with roots and rocks, and I just, you know, you see those cartoons where someone falls and just keeps going down — it was like that, I was just dragged across the rocks. I'm just trying to think of other ones where I've fallen on rocks trail running in general.

\[01:09:12\] I've had spills, but that's the one I really remember. Why do you want us to bring up times we've hurt ourselves, Ryan, I don't like that — that's alright, though. Sammy Way, friend of the show, has sent us a message — he said, I really enjoyed the last few episodes, gents. By the way, to everybody who's sent messages in about bingeing the episodes, keep sending them through, I love hearing about people discovering the show and going back to listen from the start. Sammy says, enjoyed the last episode, gents, keep it going, particularly liked the branded-shoe chat.

\[01:09:43\] Really funny and on point. He's updated his running goal — Sam sent in his goals previously, saying he wanted to get to 4-minute Ks for a 10K working on a sustainable heart rate, but seven weeks into that his knee started playing up, and he's gone and got some medical advice. He's now seen a few different professionals, including a surgeon, and got scans. Prognosis — great that he's handling it the right way — both sides of his knee have lateral meniscus tears, chronic degeneration, likely from years playing footy, causing him pain, but not bad enough to warrant surgery.

\[01:10:13\] But this puts him in a predicament, because running aggressively, hills, stairs, or pace would then require anti-inflammatories. So basically he's got knees that hurt if he's doing too much running. He's only 39, and he wanted to ask, because it feels like an odd way to run if you're having to take anti-inflammatories every time you want to go for a run — he'd like to hear our points of view on it, and Courtney, if you're willing to share

\[01:10:43\] whether you were taking any pain meds for long periods when you were running professionally, or even afterwards. I already got back to Sam directly on this one, because the first answer was, have I ever had long-term pain meds? No, I've never had to take anything to maintain it. Everyone manages it their own way, and I've known people who'd pop something like Nurofen, not major pain medication, and that's

\[01:11:14\] how they'd continue to manage in sport. For me, no, I've never been able to do that, because if it had to go on that long to manage it, there's a bigger problem for me in that case. This sounds like it is a larger problem — my advice back to Sam was simple, and it's not for me to tell him what to do, but he's

\[01:11:46\] gone and seen medical professionals, 100%, but if it was me in that situation, I'd want to still be able to run, so I'd manage it by doing the running I can do, and there might be a case where I just have to avoid hills. For me, running helps me enough that I still want to be able to do it, and there may come a time when you can't run, and that would be a different decision. But at least for the moment, I'd run what I can without the pain, avoid the runs that aggravate it, because long-term pain management just for a run doesn't sound worth it for

\[01:12:18\] me, I wouldn't be inclined to want to do that. But it's not a good situation, is it? No, it's interesting. What would you — I had an interesting moment probably two and a half years ago, not long after I moved up to the Gold Coast, where I was getting quite acute pain on the inside lower section of my left knee. I went and saw Kyle Weiss at

\[01:12:48\] the Gold Coast physio, and I ended up then going to see Liam at the other clinic as well. Basically, Kyle was saying it had to do with my leg strength, not having enough of it, and it was causing the pulling and aching in the knee. There was a period of about six months where it was really painful to run, but it would warm up and eventually I'd stop noticing it during the run — but then there were times

\[01:13:19\] where it wouldn't warm up and I'd feel it the entire run. I was in a similar situation to Sam, where I started taking some anti-inflammatories and putting on one of those anti-inflammatory gels, because it was really bothering me. Interestingly, I injured my calf not long afterwards, and I don't know the biomechanics at all, but maybe they were related, I don't know. As a result of injuring my

\[01:13:50\] calf, it basically forced me to deload — I had to stop running and focus on strength training. Since that injury, I've prioritised my leg strength training as much as I possibly can — not as diligent as I should be, but much more diligent than I've ever been. I can still occasionally feel that knee injury,

\[01:14:21\] but I wouldn't say it's an injury where I go "ow" — it's more awareness. I have awareness of that spot on my knee, even sitting here right now I can twist it a bit and go, yep, that's where the awareness is. But since that deloading period and the strength focus, it's never been a problem again. If it's a strength-based, fixable issue, that's one thing. But in Sam's case, the doctors have told him it's chronic, an injury that isn't going to heal by doing stuff, so that's a different situation.

\[01:14:52\] And like I said, if it was me, I'd just want to be able to do what I can to keep running — so, what would I do if I was in Sam's position? Hard to say hypothetically, I'd like to think I'd keep running because I love it, but I probably wouldn't — I'd probably go and find another cardio-based exercise that isn't causing me the pain. I don't know, it's not the answers you want to hear when you love running, is it? No — or I'd go and get really

\[01:15:26\] good at golf, take a cart and get really good at golf, although twisting your knees is probably not great for golf either. We've asked this before — what's your next sport, your out sport, if running was taken away, obviously at the moment running is the main thing you do? Golf. When the season's right for me, I plan on getting very good at golf, exploring what my ceiling is as a golfer. Might have to

\[01:15:58\] come play golf with me. I'm not a big fan of golf, but if you're playing golf with mates it's probably a different scenario, I probably don't have the etiquette to play with anyone other than my mates really. But golf's great fun — I was devastated, I was meant to play in the WPGA, the Women's Australian Championship pro-am, before Cyclone Alfred turned up and ruined it for everybody. Love golf, great sport. The one I don't do now that I'd go back to is surfing — that's the other one.

\[01:16:29\] If people haven't seen the swells that came through before Alfred hit, are you down to watch any of it? No, I saw the clips — going down and watching that live, at Kirra, that was terrifying. I love the idea of being able to surf that, I don't know if I've got the ticket for it though, no matter how confident I was, to jump out in those conditions. That's where I'd go back, that's the one thing I'd go back to doing, that I did as a kid, I suppose. But at the same time I

\[01:16:59\] wouldn't be able to leave the bike stuff — so the sport I don't get time to do, I suppose, is what I'm saying, and if running was completely taken out, gone, I'd be back surfing. Alright, well, hey, look, you might have thought we didn't have much to talk about — as always, we get to the 0.01 thing. We did have a suggestion come through, apologies for not having your name on hand — someone suggested we start a running group that goes for the duration of each episode.

\[01:17:29\] Oh, you run for it, and we balance it out — my only issue there is that's not really a running group unless you do it on Strava only, because you wouldn't want to run alongside someone and listen at the same time, but you could do a Strava run group. In the Beginning, we could look at creating a Strava run group. How long did today go for — about an hour 15? Yes, an hour 15 run. Well, everyone enjoy your runs. We've been out running now, that's bugging off,

\[01:18:02\] for those in the southeast, hopefully everyone's not too badly affected, some people would have definitely got affected, so we're thinking of you. Before we finish up today, we're on the countdown to the Salomon Golden Trail Series kunanyi race — we've got two episodes left before we run this, so make sure you stick around and share this with friends, because we're counting down to this first trip away for the podcast. We're going to be going down, running the race, and then doing a podcast with the first extra episode, so make sure you're

\[01:18:33\] sharing the love, get your friends and family involved, if they love their trail series we're going to be commenting on that, and we've got some other stuff on the way, I might have some goodies turning up from someone for us to try soon too. Love presents. Yeah, exactly, alright, we'll see you next week, see you next week.