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# EP 28 - TRAIL RUNNING TIPS
- URL: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ep-28-trail-running-tips/
- Published: 2025-03-28T06:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-20T04:13:18.000Z
- Description: Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on Olympics & 2032, trail running, Strava culture — recorded on the Gold Coast.
- Author: Courtney Atkinson
- Tags: Episodes, Main Feed, Olympics, Trail Running, Strava, Running Training, #Import 2026-07-28 20:58

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

## Listen

Listen on [Spotify](https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/inthebeginningpodcast/episodes/EP-28---TRAIL-RUNNING-TIPS-e30nqbv?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 28, and Courtney, mark this one down. If you're listening to this right now, this might be the most significant episode in the history of the podcast so far, because we are starting today with a very big announcement, a special announcement. We've been hinting at it for weeks now that we were working on something, that we had things in the pipeline. We didn't want to say anything until it was locked away and we were organised. We can announce today that we are beginning a new series.

\[00:32\] It's called In The Beginning Runs Gold Coast Marathon. Just so you know where we're going: for the next 12 weeks, starting on Wednesday, we are going to be doubling the fun for the In The Beginning family, and we will be dropping every Wednesday a special In The Beginning Runs Gold Coast podcast episode, all about getting ready for this year's Gold Coast Marathon.

\[01:02\] Yep, so we'll be going through all the training. It's about the audience — it's really targeted at those first-time runners and those middle-of-the-field runners. But we won't get ahead of ourselves. Should we let the audience know who we've got on board? Well, we have, because you and I love chatting running, and one of the things I love about you is that despite your success and your elite-level capabilities as a runner, you refuse to tell people how to train.

\[01:35\] You refuse to tell people you don't know. We see this everywhere throughout running content — Instagram influencers, all this sort of stuff, all these people telling you how you can achieve your running goals with no knowledge of you as an individual, and in some cases with no expertise to actually tell you any of this stuff. You would be more than within your rights to actually offer advice as an elite athlete, right? You could, but you choose not to. So we found someone. Should we just say who it is?

\[02:07\] Well, it is the best-ever distance runner in Australia. Benita Willis is officially coaching me for the Gold Coast Marathon, and we'll be doing it live — she's going to be in the studio live with us, going through your week to week. And if you don't know who Benita Willis is, if you're a new runner you might not be aware that she's the greatest distance runner in Australian history: four Olympics, two Commonwealth Games.

\[02:38\] But the big one — and the only Caucasian, the only non-African — is that she's the last non-African runner to win a world cross country championship. In 2004 she triumphed at the World Cross Country Championships in Belgium. No non-African runner since then has won a world championship, which is an incredible accolade when you think about it — we're talking 20 years on, and she's still the only non-African to have done it.

\[03:09\] And she still holds — she's second all-time Australian, and she held the Australian marathon world record. First Olympics in Sydney as a 5K runner, then two Olympic Games as a 10K runner, then she went to the Olympics as a marathon runner. She's still got the second fastest ever marathon time for an Aussie female. What this woman doesn't know about running isn't worth knowing. She's now a run coach — Lace Up Running is her coaching company.

\[03:41\] And it's almost a charitable act by her to take me on for this. This Wednesday we drop the first episode with Benita, and before we get into her coaching, before she takes the whistle and tells me what to do for the next 12 weeks, we dive deep into Benita as a runner. Her history, her story — it was great. Even if you're brand new to running, you've been a runner for ages, you love following it as an elite sport, or you've never watched an elite race,

\[04:14\] the stories Benita tells us in this episode coming Wednesday — it's such a great listen. For those who like old school, we've got old school: the stories about winning that world championship at cross country level. Sorry, sorry — yeah, Wednesday morning it drops, and then every Wednesday after that you're going to get a special episode of In The Beginning Runs Gold Coast. And if you've got your 12-week programme in place, it's a great

\[04:46\] way to follow along — your highs, your lows, your ups, your downs. Questions you might have about your marathon training programme and how it's going, send them in. This is going to be a lot of fun — we've got the best in the business to answer them. I am genuinely thrilled about this, I cannot wait for it. Let's get back to In The Beginning as per usual — and to that point, the Saturday episodes will continue as normal, no change to that, you still get your Saturday morning episode every week. 100% right. But today, as you're

\[05:16\] hearing this today on Saturday, we are down in Tasmania. So before we get to the Gold Coast Marathon, Liam — we've got another little run, a steep run I'd say, at the Salomon Golden Trail kunanyi. We're going to be there today, and we're going to have a special app too, so it's going to be a triple treat. For those of you who've been saying you want more, you're getting what you asked for — if you find that one a week is a perfect amount, we apologise, be patient.

\[05:47\] But yeah, we're travelling down on Friday, the race is on Saturday, and then after the race we're getting the chance to talk about it thanks to Salomon, and also talk to a few of the runners taking part, well, mainly your competitor, who is Pete from Salomon. Yeah, I've — I beat him. But I'm looking forward to it, I mean, you're going into this not really knowing what you're in for, so I can't wait to chat to you after just to find out what it's like. It's 25K,

\[06:17\] I've got some questions. Like the website said, you're expecting probably more like an average four-hour time out there — is that what it says? I think that's what you told me it said when you were reading the website. Oh, alright, I do want to talk to you a bit about the race and mindset — I don't want to get all airy-fairy about it, but we know you've been amazing in talking about how you structured your training and all the rest of that. I actually want to pick your brain about what's going on between your ears in a race like

\[06:49\] this, but we'll get to that a little later on. We were looking to lock down a guest to talk to, Logan Martin, but he's had to disappear on the other side of the world. Yeah, like I do sometimes — life of a professional athlete, one day you're here, one day you're gone. We are going to keep chasing him — I'm very interested in that story of how he ran the marathon so well as a BMX-er.

\[07:19\] Now let's stay with kunanyi. Let me talk to you about this — right now I've got a 26K run with a heap of vert ahead of me, and honestly, in my head I'm nervous about this, I'm anxious about this. How did you, over the course of your career and still now when you go to these races, mentally prepare for racing physically? In the early days when I was racing professionally, I did, yeah.

\[07:52\] As much as this pains me to say, Liam, I probably did it through visualisation without even knowing it at the time. When it's your job, when your whole livelihood stems on a race, you go over that race in your head over and over again, and different scenarios play out how you'd like the race to go. You probably get a bit nervous and stressed if the race doesn't play out that way. In triathlon there were a lot of different variables, but it's

\[08:24\] the same with running — all those different variables can happen. And I think trail more than even road running offers all those different variables, like: will I keep up on the first hill? What happens if I'm on my own and can't keep up with the front pack — how do I respond? Do I overrun myself early to stay with them, or do I step back and run my own pace? All of this goes through your head, but I always used to deal with that before the race. So when I talk about visualisation, it's

\[08:55\] more about sitting there thinking about the race and how I ought to react to certain things that would happen in the race if they happened. So you're already ahead of the game in that respect — you've thought through any number of ways the race might pan out, and how you'll react in each of those ways. Correct. Did I always react that way? Probably not, but at least I was comfortable having thought about it, because there's nothing worse

\[09:26\] than being hit — not just in a race, in anything — suddenly hit with a scenario and having to make decisions while you're tired, when you're probably thinking about a hundred other things. It's always nice to know you've already gone through certain scenarios in your head. And that's from a competitive point of view, right, but I think you can also look at it from just purely wanting to achieve your best, because I always had this saying — someone else gave it to me, so I want to give them full credit

\[09:56\] for it — but it was always around the start of a race: what advice would you give me to start a race? And I'd always say, if you run out feeling like you're running too hard, you are. If you feel like you're running at the correct pace, you're probably still running too hard. And if you run off the start line thinking 'I'm not running hard enough,' you're probably running the right pace, because one thing's for sure — in distance running it's going to catch up with you at some point. Give that to me again, cleanly, because already in my head I'm seeing this for the episode, for

\[10:28\] the Instagram page: Courtney Atkinson's race start-line advice. If you're running off the start line and you feel like you're running too quick, you're 100% overdoing it already. If you feel like you're running the correct pace, you're still probably running too hard. If you're thinking 'this is too easy,' you're probably at the correct pace, because one thing's for sure — in distance running it's going to eventually catch up with you. I love that.

\[10:58\] I love that, and for me, heading into kunanyi this weekend with every intention of walking up that hill — and you're going to hit a hill very soon — the thing with hills is, another thing I'd say around hills and trail running, even the top guys walk, power hike. There's a certain elevation or steepness to a hill's gradient where it's actually more efficient to just walk up it.

\[11:29\] The amount of energy it takes most people to run up that hill is actually detrimental compared to what you could achieve walking up there. So this is good to know — you'll often hear it called power walking. Even when I was out the front of a trail race, like if I was in something like a Six Foot Track race, which I've won in the past — 43K, three-and-a-half-hour run — there'd be times where I'm thinking, oh my god, I'm blowing up, this is too hard, and I'd have a little bit of a walk at a certain part of the

\[11:59\] steepness of a hill, thinking someone's going to catch me. But you have to realise that most people are in the same situation, and that's always the key with running, especially trails: if you're hurting, someone at the same standard as you is probably going through the same thing. It's not like someone's out there sprinting 100 metres, gawking as you struggle. Everyone's in the same situation, so that's always reassuring to me in trail races — if I'm feeling like this, the likelihood is most people around

\[12:30\] me are feeling like this too. So if I can tough it out a little bit more, I'm all good. As you've been talking, I'm loving hearing this, and I can guarantee there's probably people out there listening who might even be power hiking as we speak, or at the very least tackling a hill right now. Quick Google — Trail Runner Mag, there's a study, a 2016 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Some science for you here, because I don't normally bring the science chat.

\[13:01\] Here we go — the authors of this study sought to find the grade at which walking becomes more efficient than running. Taking a page from the movie Spinal Tap, they cranked a specially designed treadmill up to 11 — in this case, allowing it to reach 40 degrees, while most treadmills only get to 15\. The study found that on an incline steeper than a 15.8% gradient, athletes can reduce their energy expenditure by walking rather than running. So 15% — that's interesting.

\[13:34\] You can take your iPhone, put it on the ground with the gradient calculator on it, and check. While the study looked at relatively fresh athletes, it's likely the optimal grade for walking decreases as the length of the race increases and muscles fatigue. So if you imagine that most treadmills will take you up to a gradient of 15 degrees — if anyone wants to try the exercise, jump on a treadmill, take it to max incline, that's roughly the point at which it becomes more efficient for most runners to

\[14:05\] walk instead of run. I'd just argue go by feel — if you're trying to run up a gradient and it feels way harder than running hard on the flat, harder than you could possibly sustain on flat ground, just start to power hike through that section until the gradient reduces enough that you can run again. And I guarantee if you're able to run from that point, you'll pick up so many places and so much more speed than

\[14:36\] you would putting yourself into the red line going up those hills. I've just taken that number from Trail Runner Mag and looked at the gradient of Mount Wellington — sadly it's not 15 degrees at any point, the average gradient of Mount Wellington is 6.6%. So I expect no walking, Liam. That's fine, expect whatever you want, Courtney — I'll tell you what I'll be doing, and that's walking. Can we just stay with mindset during a race for a moment? Because I love that start-line stuff you've just given me and everybody else.

\[15:09\] What about when things go wrong? What about in the middle of a trail run or a marathon or whatever, and you realise it's all fallen apart? I think you just have to learn to reset. When I say reset — these are long races, and for most people, because we're talking to a wide variety of runners here, these runs are all really long, and that's the nature of distance running. You go through your ups and downs even in a hard 10-kilometre race at the top level,

\[15:39\] you'll still go through phases where it's a bit harder and then you come good again — this is natural. I think that's the key: knowing it's natural for everyone, from the elite right through, that you're going to go through bad periods. And if you've got your head in the game and you can reset, you can come back out of that bad period and go through a good one — even recapture yourself and run on better than you were. That happens in racing, that happens in running, that happens definitely in distance sports. So mine is always: accept whatever's going on

\[16:09\] and then reset. Work out a way you can reset yourself. Another one I always had — again, given to me — you get all this advice over the years, some things work, some don't — was that when I'm overthinking it, when it's getting too hard, just go back to the basics of counting your steps. Don't think about how far you've got left to go, just start counting your steps on each leg. Do the best 10 steps you can on your right leg,

\[16:41\] do the best 10 steps you can on your left leg. All of a sudden what happens is you're concentrating on something — a bit like counting sheep to go to sleep — you're concentrating on something that isn't really a factor in your running, trying to do it the best you possibly can, and that's what you're focused on. But what happens is you do 20 steps, and suddenly you're 40 steps down the road, then 60, and you've forgotten about what you were actually trying to work through. At the same time, you've actually focused on just form, and form is often what falls

\[17:11\] apart when you get really tight and your legs are stuffed. Talking about counting your steps has prompted something in my mind — Jackie Bell, who some people might know and some might not. I think she's the youngest ever, well, certainly the youngest ever Australian to have done it — she might be one of the youngest ever people to have run an ultra marathon on every continent. She does a lot of long, multi-day races. Recently she raced in Tanzania, and I just wanted to quickly read out this Instagram

\[17:42\] post of Jackie's — I'm a big fan of Jackie, I love her content, I love the way she talks about her running. She was doing a race in Tanzania, in Africa, and she put this post up. She said: big days last week, equal parts unreal and brutal. 80% of the time I was smiling, but this race pushed me. I spent a lot of it solo, seeing if I could keep pace and stay in second place for females overall. That voice kept creeping in: slow down, have a walk on the flats. I gave in twice briefly, then snapped out of it. Walking just meant even more time out there. I'd tell myself, come on legs,

\[18:14\] just one more step. But when my mind wavered, and it did, I counted: 1, 2, 3, 4\. She'd hit 100, hold down a finger, and start counting again. She made it to 600 once — if she lost count, she'd start over. It pulled her back, kept her present, kept her steady running. It's just taking the focus away from what you're actually feeling. So she was literally counting and then taking fingers down as a way of keeping

\[18:45\] track. It sounds like from what Jackie said, and what you were describing, that it's a mind reset and distraction from what you're actually feeling, yeah — and it can even be used as a performance boost at some stage. So it might not necessarily be that you're going through an absolute disaster period, or a pain period — it might just be, I want to try and catch that guy or girl who's 100 metres up the track from me.

\[19:16\] A good way to do it is again to concentrate on your form in distance running, because generally when your form picks up, your hips pick up, everything comes good, you're running more efficiently, and then you can peg it back. So you might say, well, until I catch that person 100 metres down the track, I'm just going to count 10 steps on one leg, 10 steps on the other. It's amazing what that does — I'm not, that's why I said at the beginning I didn't think I'd be saying this type of thing, because these are things that naturally occurred to me, I never put them into the mental space, I just put them into,

\[19:48\] that's how I do things, better space to deal with it, yeah. But I think from the average person's perspective, sometimes we can get caught up with all the noise out there, thinking you have to visualise it. It's a bit like the journaling stuff we talked about — if you brand it or put it under a heading of mental exercise, some people can just go, nah, that's not who I am.

\[20:18\] Which is what I'd do — as soon as someone mentions some type of mental health clinic selling me something in that space, I'm out, I switch off, I'm off that post or out the door quicker than you can say boo. But if someone gives me a way I can perform better, and it's simple — this is something that might work as a cue, we've talked about cues before — here's a cue, whether it's physical or whatever, this is going

\[20:48\] to help me perform better — then, listen, 100%, try it. Doesn't work? Throw it out. Works for you? I love it. Can we talk about — you've given me actually some, speaking of cues, I'm going to use a lot of those in this race. Oh, the steps one's amazing, I'm going to use it, it's so easy and so useful. I'm really excited to try it today in the race. Quickly — Salomon, amazing,

\[21:19\] thank you to Pete and the crew at Salomon for hooking me up, for coming to the party. I tried it on a fun little reel up on the Instagram page. I'm really excited — do I need some warmer stuff? How cold is this going to get? Even though I can't run with you, I thought about what I need to take down as we go to Mount Wellington — the elevation at the top was 1,000 metres or so, someone can correct us on that.

\[21:51\] On Saturday it's going to be 6 degrees at the top there, mate — definitely not Queensland weather. Though, you know, 6 degrees when you're running, unless there's a massive wind chill — and it's not going to be windy on that day, I don't think — 6 can be really cold up in the mountains if it is windy, but if you've just sweated your backside off going all the way up there, 6 degrees is perfect running weather. It's really nice, but up there

\[22:23\] it's going to be a max of 11, down to 6, so it doesn't look too bad. I see the next day, Sunday, it drops to 1 up there — now that would be a different story. It's different if you live down there, that's the environment you're exposed to every day, but when we're up here in Queensland, you know what it's like when it drops to 11 in winter — we're in our clubs, 26 degrees outside today, and it's a bit fresh. Yeah, exactly. Top of kunanyi is at 1,271 metres. So 6 degrees up there, down low I'm seeing Hobart's going to be,

\[22:54\] what are we looking at, 12 to 21? So it'll be good running conditions for us — might even be too hot for the Southerners. Do I need to bust out the long fluoro socks? Do my knee socks need to make a comeback? No, no, we're not mixing Salomon with fluoro knee socks, thanks. Those new S/LAB Genesis shoes you've got are amazing, we're not wrecking them with fluoro. But you reckon no need for thermals or anything?

\[23:24\] They'll be compulsory gear you've got to take — you've got the jacket, I've got the jacket. It feels a bit late to be checking compulsory gear, and I haven't checked it yet, but I'd say for these types of runs you're going to need to take a space blanket. If you rolled your ankle or something and couldn't move for a while, sitting down in six degrees while you're sweating — it's always good to have that. You'll also need a sealed wear jacket. Got one of those too, thanks Salomon. OK, so that's all sorted.

\[23:55\] And in this run, unless they consider six degrees at the top — which I don't think they will — they might throw in thermals and things like that, which we'll sort you out with just in case, but at six degrees I can't see them requiring thermals. On the mandatory stuff, I need to take a rubbish bag — for anyone who doesn't run trail races, this is the extra stuff you carry compared to a road marathon, because you're out on the trails on your own, facing different conditions, the chance of getting injured with cars not able to reach you, and all that

\[24:26\] sort of thing. There's always compulsory gear you need to take, and depending on the run and the weather, that dictates how big the compulsory list needs to be. If you do something like Coast to Coast, you need multiple wet-weather pants, a wet-weather jacket, multiple thermals, thermal socks, thermal gloves, a thermal beanie — by the time you pack all that, it becomes like running with a serious backpack. I have to take a snake bandage too — for all the road runners who look at trail runners with packs on,

\[24:59\] and think, that's not the ones running down the beach, but out on the trails with packs — that's the reason packs exist, you've got to carry your own gear, your own nutrition, your own fluid. Anyway, the mandatory gear checklist doesn't look too bad, should be able to tick it off. This is going to be fun, and we'll recap all of it — ideally we'll get it out either Sunday night or Monday morning. Next week you're in for a treat, because we've got some seriously good stuff coming your way on the podcast feed.

\[25:31\] I would say if you're a listener enjoying the Saturday episodes, now is the time to bring in your running friends who might be tackling marathons, because this stuff we start dropping from Wednesday with Benita Willis — it's our usual style, Courtney and I doing our thing, but we're bringing some serious running coaching credibility. So get on board now. Alright, let's move on, Liam — have you seen the stuff about the Olympics on the news at the

\[26:03\] moment? I've got a few things I want to chat about. First, we've got crocs — they've put a rowing venue up in Rockhampton, and I think that's a bit of a stretch with crocs on the river. I think that's what got picked up — a guy got taken by a crocodile there the other day. But what's the definition of 'infested,' because it keeps being referred to as the croc-infested Fitzroy River. If they could have picked any news story for the international media to pick up on, it would be that — even the fact there is a

\[26:34\] croc every so often down the river. The definition of 'infested' is that insects or animals are present in numbers — so, by that measure, yes, there have been and probably still are some crocodiles in that river at some point. I'd love to get someone more across these decisions to weigh in, because there's a few things they've announced that I've just gone, wow, that's — well, tell me what you think about them, because, OK, the crocs, the

\[27:06\] venue going up to Rockhampton — you think that's short-sighted? I understand the soccer and the different sports that need a lot of venues going to places like Cairns and Townsville, supporting the regionalisation of it — that's amazing. But if you're coming to an Olympic Games and you're racing, you want to be at the main site, because I've raced the Beijing Olympics where I was literally an hour and a half out of the city, and it just feels like

\[27:37\] you're at another event entirely, compared to London, where I was racing in Central Hyde Park with half a million people watching — suddenly you feel like you're in an Olympic Games. So for a Brisbane Olympics, I want to see the majority of those sports in close proximity to the city, where they get crowds and you feel like you're part of the Olympics. That's me as an Olympian talking. And that's a great perspective, because most people don't want to be up in Rocky, I can tell you right now — and that's not against Rockhampton, it's just

\[28:07\] the nature of the Olympic Games we're talking about here — this isn't an everybody-gets-a-prize sort of thing, this is the Olympics. I made that joke on the radio show the other morning, when this was announced, imagining Olympians in 20-30 years telling their kids or grandkids about their Games, and one says, what did you do? I rowed in Paris — right in the heart of one of the most romantic, beautiful cities in the world. What about you? I rowed in London, right in the — what about you? Rockhampton. Where's

\[28:37\] that? About four hours, 650 Ks north of Brisbane. Anyway, it's interesting, the stadium being proposed for Victoria Park — are you for or against? The only decision they could have made — I know there's a cost associated, but it's the Olympics, it doesn't come for free. We've made the decision to go and get the Games, now we have to do the right thing by the Games and by the city and invest some money into this new park. The Gabba gets knocked down too,

\[29:10\] right decision in my opinion — that vicinity is too small to ever redevelop. You knock that down, put some high-rise apartments in place, hopefully alleviate some of the housing crisis that Brisbane and all of Australia has at the moment. You still get that bang for buck, and then you create this new precinct at Victoria Park, which gives Brisbane a new identity aside from just the brown snake. Couldn't agree more. And what's more, as someone from Adelaide who has seen what a big football stadium can do in proximity to the city —

\[29:41\] you revitalise Fortitude Valley, you revitalise the Brisbane CBD, you give small businesses locked-in crowds and punters every time there's a football game, a cricket game, a concert. This is different, even to Sydney Olympic Park — because even Sydney Olympic Park is still an hour out, you still have to travel. This is Roma Street Station, walkable, right at Suncorp Stadium — it's just adding to this whole area.

\[30:12\] Yes, they're going to lose some parklands, I understand that, and that's never great in a city — you want all the parklands you can get — but I think they can create it with parklands and still get other benefits. This is going to be the best legacy the Brisbane Olympics could leave. Couldn't agree more, hope it happens. Now the funny one — nothing to do with Brisbane, this is even earlier. Did you see this modern pentathlon stuff going on? So — what modern pentathlon events

\[30:43\] do we have? Swimming in a pool, they swim; fencing, they fence; cross country, they run; shoot; and they used to horse ride — well, exactly, they used to horse ride. The Olympic Committee has decided from now on they're going to throw in a bit of old Ninja Warrior obstacle course racing. Do you think this has gone too far, trying to chase the young audience? Well, it's not really trying to chase the young — well, it probably is, it's a little bit to do with

\[31:14\] the horses, it achieves two purposes really. One is there were a lot of complaints — I think it was a German coach who punched a horse. You can't punch horses, right, don't punch horses, we are not pro punching horses. So one is there's been complaints about animal cruelty as part of the Olympic Games. The other is this idea of trying to attract a younger audience — but Ninja Warrior isn't attracting a younger audience. But hang on, I can even understand obstacle course racing, you know,

\[31:46\] HYROX, all this stuff's booming, it's — it's still got fencing, it's not like they've just added a real Gen Z sport into obstacle course racing, you've still got to do all the traditional stuff. So they've taken the most traditional event in the Olympics — because it really is a niche event, it is a legacy event, I'll go as far as saying that — because if you look at my sport, triathlon, when I was at the Games it was, in a way, the new kid on the block. For modern pentathlon it was

\[32:17\] the next evolution. But I love that they've always kept this legacy event, I love watching it — Chloe Esposito, big shout out, Australian gold medallist. So now they go around and take the oldest event and go, let's just shove some action in there and see if it works. I think this is — imagine if they said to you, Courtney, the bike leg has gotten a bit dangerous in triathlon, so instead we want you to sit down and play Fortnite. So swim 1.5Ks, then play a game of Fortnite,

\[32:48\] then you can go run your 10K. It wouldn't surprise me, that's the kind of logic they're running with — just throwing stuff at a wall and hoping it sticks. Man, I hate it. It's such — the Olympics, to me, as someone who's never competed, I've always held them as, not antiquated, but a tradition, a historical event

\[33:20\] and something that shouldn't be touched, which is why I'm not a huge fan — I love breakdancing's success and I'm actually OK with skateboarding being in, but I hated breakdancing going in. I guess everyone will have their own line as to what's OK to bring into the Olympic Games. I don't like cricket going into the Olympics — I think it'll be there as an exhibition sport, and I don't like it, I don't think cricket should be in the Olympics. But this idea that we're going to start tinkering with the sports themselves, to me it's

\[33:56\] — I'm trying to think of an analogy — it feels like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa, or putting a speech bubble out of the Mona Lisa's mouth with some clever caption. Look, it's obviously still very successful, and there's lots of money involved in the Olympics, but I don't know what it looks like in 20 years if they keep going down this route, and whether it'll work. You've just given me an idea, and I'm going to go off on a tangent here — let's go, because you said

\[34:26\] cricket at the Olympics. Do you think — because I mean the Commonwealth Games is kind of dying, well, I won't say dead, but it's on its farewell tour, it's got its challenges — do you reckon they could make Commonwealth Games work if they doubled down on true Commonwealth-only sports? If they went more traditional, back to the sports that only realistically core Commonwealth Games countries own and

\[34:58\] really play — bowls, netball, cricket, some of the core football sports, keep swimming, keep track and field, the traditional sports — but then really lean into what only exists at the Commonwealth Games, sports that are truly more Commonwealth countries. To your point, yes you could, but I guarantee the organising committee would then find themselves making decisions like the IOC has, going: but how do we attract the kids?

\[35:29\] How do we make it relevant? So the cricket wouldn't be — it'd have to be T20, you couldn't play One Day or Test, it'd have to be T20, but that's fine, it still comes off at the Games. Netball would be Fast5, or whatever the shortened T20 version of netball is — and this is my point, I don't think it's so much about the sports, I think it's about making reactive decisions trying to

\[35:59\] get a younger audience interested in what you're doing, and I don't know if that's the right strategy. I think you've got to know what you are, sell what you are and celebrate what you are, not try to change what you are to appeal to people. I don't care — I got told a few days ago, maybe you just have to let go, and I said, I don't want to. I like sport the way it was. Did you see — you said you hadn't seen it yet — I was watching Gout Gout's coach. Did his coach —

\[36:31\] no, I haven't watched this yet. He's amazing, old school — they've got her on there, and literally as she walks in she's playing up to the camera a bit, but she said something along the lines of: I make all of my athletes at the school sign an agreement, and their parents too, and it has certain things in it that they've got to fulfil. So literally she's making sure that this is a two-way street — if I'm going to commit to you, you're going to commit to me, and these are the things I

\[37:02\] expect. She's a real hard-line, old-school coach — Di Sheppard. Yeah, I told you on the show, no hat, no training, that sort of thing. 22 years at Ipswich Grammar, awesome, and now she's obviously been put in the limelight — she's worth watching. I can't wait to see what's going on in her future, I want to see more of her. Do you think she's a — I think, my

\[37:36\] personal opinion, I'd love to see more coaches like that, just discipline, but it's like tough love. Is it Dean Boxall style stuff? I think — no, without the carry-on, but not that tough love, more nurturing tough love. Interesting. I think we'll talk about it more in the future as we see more of her, but I think she's going to be a big story — she'll be a Dean Boxall style coach where we'll be just as interested in her as we are in Di. Yeah, yeah,

\[38:08\] that's a situation that's exciting to hear. Quickly — you've put something in my brain there — have you seen the story going around the football world at the moment with Simon Goodwin? Interested to get your take on this. Simon Goodwin, the coach of the Melbourne Demons — sorry to drift into AFL world for anyone not interested, but this isn't about the sport specifically, it's about the coach-athlete relationship. Last weekend the Demons got flogged, badly beaten by North Melbourne in a game they went in as favourites for, and lose off the back

\[38:40\] of it, Max Gawn, their captain, who's been an All-Australian and the best ruckman in the competition for the last decade, gets beaten one-on-one in his battle against Tristan Xerri, the Kangaroos' ruckman, quite badly. Goodwin gets asked about it in the press conference, comes out and basically defends his captain, says yeah, he got beaten, and then offers up the information that there's some personal stuff going on in Max's life, which might be part of the reason he underperformed today,

\[39:12\] which hadn't been public knowledge previously. All of a sudden, that's a rag to the bloodhounds — all the media want to know what's going on in Max's personal life. Max, to his credit, fronted up on his media commitments on Triple M, the company I work for, on the breakfast show, and talked about it really well. But it's raised the conversation of whether Goodwin did the right thing offering up that information, and he's come out and said he probably would have handled it differently in hindsight.

\[39:42\] But it's the same idea we mentioned about Di Sheppard and Gout Gout, that nurturing coach-athlete relationship — because I asked Damien Hardwick, of the Gold Coast Suns, about it, and he said he's got no doubt what Goodwin did came from a place of care for his athlete and friend, trying to protect him, but it inadvertently piled on more pressure, opened the door. So, and interestingly, today, if you're listening to this on Saturday, Melbourne are playing Gold Coast,

\[40:13\] so it'll be interesting to see how Jarrod Witts goes against Max Gawn, because regardless of what Max Gawn has got going on, and I don't actually know what it is, he'll be looking to put in a very big, dominant performance against Jarrod Witts. Oh mate, I'm an unashamed QLD supporter, so it's hard not to be a fan of big Witty. Alright, let's move on — what do we got next? I've got — last week, remember we finished our last episode talking about running etiquette. Funny enough, and complete coincidence, Matt Hauser — Australia's currently

\[40:46\] best Olympic male triathlete — he has just starred, or starring is probably an overstatement, on Instagram, he's attempted acting. In this Street Smart commercial — listen to this: 'Well, Queenslanders, it's a new year, which means new goals. Lots of people have health and fitness on their mind for 2025, which we love, whether you're going for a half marathon or your local fun run — let's make sure we get from the start line to the cafe as safely as possible.

\[41:16\] Even if you're a local legend and know the loop like the back of your hand, make sure you keep your wits about you — jeez, that was close, better switch sides when running in a group. Communication is key, make sure you look out for each other, use hand signals and your voices. Stay safe out there. Let's go get a coffee.' Have you ever hand-signalled while running? We've made it, runners, we've made it — that's the government's investment in telling people how to run in a group on the right. I kind of feel for Matt, but I also understand the exact

\[41:47\] situation he's in, where someone's offered him some cash and a script — a government script — it's hilarious, but it's also good that they're investing. I think he's done a great job presenting that, I actually think, well done Matt Hauser, that performance is great, and I'm not taking the piss, I actually think he's done a really good job of it. Have you ever hand-signalled while running? No — oh, sorry, I lied.

\[42:18\] No, no, I hand signal most mornings if I'm running with Ozzy's crew at Main Beach — we're on the trails, and if there's something in the middle, like a hole, I point it out, like you're on a bike, I do a little point. Depending on which side it is, we'll do a little point within the group on the trails. I've never hand-signalled to turn a corner though. Is that seriously in the video? He does hand-signal for that too — yes, that was — make sure you hand signal.

\[42:50\] So if you're running around — I think he's running in the back streets of Miami or somewhere — and they're on the road, and it's like you're a bike, if you're going to go around the corner, put your hand out. Matt Hauser might run at a pace that requires hand signalling. I don't, right? And no — I was just, after talking about etiquette last week, this popped up in my feed and I thought, oh, this is brand new, it's only just come out — so clearly this is part of the Street Smart campaign, a road safety campaign. Well, the first thing I said to

\[43:20\] my wife was: can you believe they're spending money trying to teach people running etiquette, and they haven't even bothered with the electric bikes and scooters yet? Well, I was wrong, because I went to the website and they actually do — I just hadn't seen it, there's a whole heap of other parts of this campaign I hadn't reached yet. This is a moment — mark this down as the moment we talked about, that run clubs have become such a moment that government is now providing guidance, safety videos on how to run in the

\[43:56\] streets safely while training for these marathons. This is another moment. Remember the time before, when I'd go running and they didn't tell you how to run around the streets? Anyway, this is overreach — this is overkill, to be clear. This is, hey, unless Queensland state government wants to throw some of that sweet Matt Hauser cash our way, we'll do the videos for you. I'm just jealous — if that one came across my desk, I reckon I

\[44:28\] would — you know when people ask you what's the price, hey, if you guys want a trail safety running video, I know a guy. A trail's fine. Well, now you're the head of the trail society. Next one I've got — have a listen to this. 'What's your name?' 'My name is Dante.' 'And what are you about to do in a couple of months?' 'I'm about to run 500 miles on psychedelics.'

\[44:59\] Stop it. So — press the button, I stopped it. This is us talking about things going further and further, and what's next. This guy is going to run 500K for a movie, promoting it, asking for money, and running on mushrooms. I don't care, this is dumb, this is just dumb. I thought this one might rub you up the wrong way. It has, it has, and if you look at the caption

\[45:31\] of this Instagram video, it says: 'If you like the concept of this documentary we're filming, support us by tagging Joe Rogan' — which says everything you need to know. This guy is doing it because he wants to become famous, doing it for the sole reason of trying to — this is the bad runner we talked about the other week. This is not Jelly Roll, who started his run club, whatever it was called,

\[46:03\] because he's fallen in love with running despite being a person of profile — Losers Run Club, sorry, not Dumb — Losers Run Club. Jelly Roll is a known person who's fallen in love with running, great, this is someone who wants to become famous and is using running to do it. And I hate that, and by talking about it we're giving fuel to the fire — that's the issue, but that's social media, right, it's content. I won't lie,

\[46:33\] I'll probably keep tabs on it, just because I don't know if he's done it or not. From what I've seen of people who try to run 500-plus miles, I think you get yourself into a headspace where you probably don't need the psychedelics — I think the experience of running 500 miles is enough of a drug anyway. A few more loose ends from last week, Liam — I was wrong, Drive to Survive is coming back. Oh, this was — yeah, I don't think you realised at the time

\[47:04\] what a bombshell it was. Well, I mean, this made my ears prick up — yeah, I was thinking the same. What I did, the reason was I was reading about all the wrong storylines — I was promoting the story they were pushing this season, which wasn't the real story, so there was backlash from the drivers saying that story doesn't exist, that it's manufacturing drama, the producers are pushing things around, making

\[47:36\] things appear as they're not, all for the sake of a story, which eventually made the drivers say, I don't want to be involved in that. That's where I read there might not be a season. However, I've since read Netflix have renewed for season 8, but I wonder whether season 8 will be noticeably different, because to your point, reality TV producers, famously on shows like The Bachelor, use lack of sleep, use alcohol, use these tools as a way to

\[48:06\] get the drivers — to drive a wedge between people, because they want to create drama, that's their job. The difference is those contestants in reality television are expendable, because they don't come back, right? If you're producing Drive to Survive, these drivers aren't expendable, they're your recurring characters who you need on board with the project again next season. I noticed Max wasn't in it a lot this year, I think he was probably like, I've had enough of you guys painting me a certain way, he probably ticked the box he had to and then

\[48:37\] pulled back a bit. Hey, I hope they get it right and I hope it keeps going. Well, the big question we had after last episode, and we did a bit of a shout-out or reel around it, was: do you actually care who wins a marathon race? I said 'care' is a harsh word, but do you know who wins marathon races? So we got plenty of feedback, and most of it was in agreement — we don't know. Gordo Moffatt was chatting to my group after this about winners of the races. They don't see running as a

\[49:09\] sport, they see it as a way to get fit and lose weight — couldn't care less. One lady I trained didn't even realise the marathon she does is the same race the winner does, she just starts miles away in a different zone, and it blew her mind that there's actually another race going on. I love that response. What else did he say — people say, even at parkrun, same thing, you know, who wins parkrun?

\[49:39\] No one really gives a shit. I'm learning so much doing this with you, Liam, talking about these different things. I'm just having a look through some — because the only thing people really care about winning, if they're just running, is at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, where they're watching it. So if we wanted to throw a broad blanket over: do people care

\[50:09\] about the winners of the marathon? Yes, if they're not competing but are watching — but no, if they are competing, most people don't care, but if you're watching, of course you care. That was Gordo. I like it. What else have we got — we'll get to the podcasts people listen to in a future episode, because there's so many coming through, too many, and I want to make sure mine gets in there too. But thanks very much for sending them in, we've got a heap of them. As far as Luke Smith wrote in, on

\[50:39\] the comments — sorry, those who don't have Instagram can always leave comments on our Spotify, probably the easiest way to do it — as running fans, he thinks we're looking at the marathon as a sport again, which it is, but a large percentage of people look at the marathon as purely a challenge or a goal. Most marathon runners wouldn't follow major marathon results and don't care who the professionals in any given race are. That's why we've pulled a first-timer into our marathon series, Liam, and we've got a

\[51:11\] first-time marathoner coming in to support you. So for everyone out there listening who thinks the same way, we've provided the perfect lead-up to the marathon for you. Yeah, we should stop on this point — we talked a bit about this new series we're starting, first one drops Wednesday, but this is really exciting: we've got a young woman named Bronte Langbroek, who also works in radio with me, and she's coming on for her first ever marathon. She fell in love with running about 12 months ago, she's run a half before, but

\[51:42\] this is her first marathon. She's thrilled at the opportunity to be trained by Benita, and for everyone out there who might be doing their first marathon, second marathon, still very much the goal is finishing — Bronte's going to be a great touch point through this series to see how she's travelling through the 12-week block, and to hopefully reflect what your experience is, or at least answer some of the questions or thoughts you might be having across your journey. If you're in the same situation — and look, we're not just going to be focused on Liam and Bronte,

\[52:13\] we're the ones asking them the broader questions, and already in a few interviews we've learned a heap of stuff about kilometres run and recovery, what matters, what doesn't. So that's all coming. Now I've got a shout-out for the Queenslanders, we're Queenslanders up here — Holly Ransom, huge day, she's just run the 24-hour track race in Canberra. I used to know her from her triathlon days.

\[52:43\] I know, I've always known her as a triathlete, not a runner. But anyway, it was the Australian 24 Hour Track Championships — that sounds awful. She's run 263.5 kilometres in 24 hours, a new Australian record, new Australian champion, and the third-best 24-hour female performance in history. Now I don't know if that's Australian all-time or history full stop, but that's huge, congrats — massive shout-out, Holly

\[53:14\] Ransom, well played, better you than me, I'm more than happy to be away from that one. Can we just — we did get another message back, and people might remember my misguided 'your lungs are a toilet' theory. If you missed that episode, go back — it was medically disproved, which is great, by a friend of mine, Farah, who's a cardiologist, and she explained why my half-baked theory about lungs being a toilet was wrong. But a woman named Jess

\[53:47\] Baird Walsh has messaged the show, and she's a friend of Farah's — she said, hey guys, wanted to say hi and introduce myself, I heard about you from Farah, wanted to tell you what I'm doing, and it's incredible: Jess is up to 995 days running consecutively — that's over two years she's been running consecutively, minimum five Ks, she might have cracked 1000 by now.

\[54:19\] She's probably through 1000 days by now, and she wanted to fill in the info saying that regarding marathons and winners and why people don't care, runners are racing against themselves — she reckons that's why it's less about the elites and more about breaking down your own barriers. She said she's running the Sydney Marathon as part of her challenge and is so excited to see Kipchoge. So just another perspective on marathon runners and finishing. While I'm thinking of it, this just came across — I got sent something from one of your mates about you jumping on a bandwagon.

\[54:50\] Oh no, who's this? I know where that's come from — is that you in a stadium, singing? Let me explain — those who throw stones. No, let me explain, Courtney. Yes, I have been very hypocritical, I know where you got that from, and Sam gets stuffed — Sam sent that to you, hasn't he? Yes, yes.

\[55:20\] So once a year on Anzac Day, my friends and I from school — I can't get there this year sadly — we normally go down to the Anzac Day clash, Collingwood and Essendon. I'm a Port Adelaide supporter, but for this game, once a year we all choose sides just to add some spice to it amongst us. So I'm a Collingwood supporter for one game every year, and yes, Liam, I have been somewhat hypocritical, and I've been caught out. You've been caught with

\[55:50\] your pants down — that's the problem with social media and phones and doing things on camera. Anything more you've got, Liam, anyone sending in — no, I'm more than happy to keep sharing. If I'm not allowed to read out all the pages from your journals, I'm not allowed to ask people to submit stuff on the running bandwagon. As we're talking about other sports people doing it — Mark Cavendish, great, ran in his first half marathon last week in Paris, in a time of

\[56:20\] 1:57:08\. Half marathon in Paris. OK, now, we are pro running across all things — yes, we've talked about the average Strava time and all that, but Mark Cavendish ain't no average person, right? To me that seems slow for Mark Cavendish. Sir Mark Cavendish — he's a track cyclist, we talk about aerobic base, we've spoken about what Logan Martin the BMX rider was capable of. I imagine if Richie Porte turned

\[56:51\] his hand to it — oh, Richie came from triathlon, I think he could probably switch and go pro at it. That seems slow for Mark Cavendish, doesn't it? Well, he's not bad, but I'm glad he's done it — if you've never run before, he might be someone who's come from the bike and just never run, so it's completely unnatural, but he's out there. Just another one, great to have every week, seeing them just keep flowing in — great that running continues to grow. Can we get an injury update from you, how are we doing for time? We're going to have a long run,

\[57:22\] today — how are we doing for time, where are we at? We're up towards an hour, but we've still got some stuff to get to. I'll be very quick on my update, because there is no running — I have a stress reaction in my bone, it's not too bad, it's not broken, cracked or fractured, which is good news, so I'll be back in no time, probably a timeline of about six weeks. Jeez, that seems like a long time. I'll rescan in six weeks. And how are you doing with that? That's alright, so I'm going to

\[57:52\] complete rest initially, I suppose is the plan, and then — I'm on crutches, this is the advice I've been given, I don't necessarily need to be on crutches, but the longer I can stay off weight-bearing, the quicker it's going to heal and the more chance it comes back better and quicker. Is that why I'm carrying everything down to Tassie for you? You're going to carry everything, you're going to be my porter, my porter and

\[58:25\] I'm going to try and stand on those crutches as much as possible, because I'm jealous of everything going on and I want to get back as quick as possible. I'll be able to do a bit of swimming and light riding in a few weeks, so not completely out of it. Fair enough, but give us a quick update on how you're going into this weekend. I'm feeling really good, I've been running — I probably haven't run as much elevation as required to really ramp up for this, but overall I feel pretty good through my runs. I got up in the trails last weekend with a mutual friend,

\[58:55\] Reedy — we hit out 17Ks, I ran in the S/LAB Genesis and they were a great race shoe. I'm excited to run in those, racing around the Nerang 17K loop, they feel great. And that's the thing with those — they're designed for elite runners at an elite level, so they're a great shoe, but when it comes to trail, there's no plate in them, it's good and responsive rather than too soft either.

\[59:25\] But they just run like a really good shoe, and the grip on them, you're going to have no trouble going across — what do they call the rocks up at Mount Wellington? The steamers, I think they call them. Look, if you're interested, they're not cheap, they're 325 bucks or something like that, but go have a look. If you're at the point where you want to try a great trail shoe, from my experience you'll like them better than the softer pair. I much prefer those to the other

\[59:55\] pair I tried, which I would hike in — that was the Aero Glide. Yeah, no, these are more like a training shoe, softer on the feet for a runner, but these are the top of the range racer, can't wait to race in them at kunanyi. I'm coming off — my kilometres and time on feet is coming down a bit, because I'm obviously racing this weekend and then getting into my 12-week block of training with Benita, so I'm tapering, having a bit more of an easy week under guidance from the coach.

\[01:00:25\] It's not a decision I've made, but Benita has said ease up — that's the thing, right, you've got to trust. I want you to trust 100% in everything after this weekend — trust me on this weekend, hopefully it doesn't hurt you, and then after that, as soon as I cross that finish line at kunanyi in Hobart today, I take my brain out and put Benita's training notes in, I stop thinking for myself from a running perspective. But what I will say, just quickly, I hadn't thought

\[01:00:56\] about what this podcast might have done for my Strava — I reckon before we started doing this, I had maybe 20 people who I run with following me on Strava. And I never thought of Strava in that sense, of, oh, people can follow and see what you run — I've got 250 followers on Strava now. They're probably just checking in, we're not — we're not full of it each week, Liam, there's

\[01:01:26\] some level of responsibility to these people, because for the most part they see me doing the same buddy 10-15K spot out there up at Main Beach or down at Tugun — hopefully none of them are stalkers. Yeah, you know what, it's a good call, because I think anyone who does start listening to this 12-week programme and wants to see what you're doing week to week — obviously we'll have touch points with Benita each week, but if you want to see day-to-day what both yourself and, I'm assuming Bronte will be on there too — follow along, we'll get some info up.

\[01:01:56\] I'm going to try and be a lot more involved with that stuff, talking about what it's like to trail run and what we've got compared to running, and what you're in for. Since — Stegman, who you would have met, helped us run Red Bull Defiance, he was the race director at Red Bull Defiance, sets it up, he lives up in Townsville — he wrote into us and said, and Liam, you're looking at kunanyi, the Salomon Golden Trail kunanyi, as a road racer, as a roadie, trail running is all about the

\[01:02:28\] journey and the course it will take you on. It'll be just as spectacular and hurt just as much no matter how fast you run. And I agree, because it doesn't matter whether you run it hard or fast, the running up the hill is going to be hard, but it's better than the road — I'm going to say it, it's better than the road, because you're up there with all those views, running up through the forest, all those places you've never seen before. You don't get that running around the roads, and that's what we love about it. Shout out Sammy, thanks for the

\[01:02:58\] message. What he also said, and I'm 100% on board with this, I haven't run this by you, but we were doing the WTF series — he said, you know what might be a good idea, let's call out some of the local little races. We talk about the Gold Coast Marathon, some of these big sponsored trail races, City to Surf, the Sydney Marathon — let's call out some of the more unique smaller races and give them some support. I like it, I love it. So from the regional

\[01:03:29\] scene — I've got a few, straight off the bat, well, it's his race, so we'll start with Sammy's race. He talked about — let me see where the first one is — Magnetic Island. Have you heard of Magnetic Island, off Townsville? In May, get this, one has a finish line with kegs at the Arcadia Hotel. What's the race called? It'll be the Magnetic Island

\[01:04:02\] Run, I'm assuming — oh, it's the Magnetic Island Run. I like it. So you get the ferry over from Townsville — it's a trail race, so there's actually trails. I've done some filming there for Tourism Queensland before, on bikes — there's some trails, some road. I think it's like limestone rocks, it looks like, it's literally a tropical island, pretty much like Fitzroy Island off Cairns or somewhere like that, beautiful place. Tell me

\[01:04:32\] more about the race itself. Oh my god, you don't have it, do you? Here's the thing, Courtney, I'm going to bring races — I'm going to put my radio hat on here and say that when you introduce new segments — this is how it works, I don't mean to go all radio on you, but if you're going to introduce new segments on the pod without checking with me first, you'd better bring all the information, because guess what, I've got questions, right? You should be able to answer these questions for me. I know it's a trail race, I know it's Magnetic Island, I know it's in May — if anyone wants more, everyone's got Google, go Google it.

\[01:05:05\] No, no, Sam puts on some really good races up around Townsville. At the moment, I don't know how much you know about it, we're focused on southeast Queensland copping all this weather — North Queensland at the moment is just continually copping it too. So he's telling me around Pluma and areas north of Townsville, they could be shut off for up to a year. While we're all down here in the southeast getting soaked, there's a continual — the rain just hasn't stopped up there, continuous. I imagine that's what he's talking about,

\[01:05:37\] the two-day trail run — it's on Magnetic Island, finishes at the Arcadia Village Hotel, there's a 6K, 12K and a 21K course. They climb from Nelly Bay to the top of the hill above Arcadia Bay and into Horseshoe Bay — Saturday afternoon event, finishes, sign inside the pub, post-drink race meal. Yep, that's great, I like that. What's another one — Hell of the West was on last weekend, a friend of mine finished 5th in the women's race, came in — what's the winning time from there, probably five and a half hours or so — straight west along

\[01:06:07\] the Queensland-NSW border. I saw a picture of people walking in the water, I don't know the numbers, but it looked like there were at least 1000 people going into the river out there, depending on the water levels. Have you ever raced Hell of the West? Never been out to Hell of the West — Jacko from the run group takes some of the school kids out there, does the fun run and then helps out on the aid stations. Cool, so there's plenty of people, they get really good professionals out there, so that's another one that's turned into a massive event —

\[01:06:38\] one that's been around for years. I'm having a look at some of the photos in front of me — you know what, that's great branding. We've talked about branding in running and all the rest of it — Hell of the West is a name you'd want to have gone for. You find out about it and go, oh, this sounds cool. So you've instantly sparked interest — you've broken through the barrier of, what is that, a triathlon? Maybe we should have put some more effort into our podcast name, Liam. Too late, it's too late now.

\[01:07:08\] We've already missed the boat. There's a few — I've been out to a few different outback festivals, the Dirt and Dust Festival is at Julia Creek. Who's Julia Creek — you're going to do a quick map check on me, it's inland from Townsville as well, thousands of kilometres inland. So you've got, coming back east, Mount Isa, Cloncurry, then Julia Creek,

\[01:07:38\] a small little one-street town, and then you come back through places like Hughenden and Charters Towers, on that route — it's about a seven-hour drive inland from Townsville. Julia Creek used to run a triathlon in the early days. I went there as an underage teenager, drinking in the pub thinking how big and tough I was, and, I kid you not, I remember this, I went up with the team when I raced for Zuccone, went up with the Zuccone team to do this triathlon, and went into

\[01:08:08\] the pub and ordered — what are they called, the fire engines or whatever, red fire trucks — some sort of underage red lemonade drink, in the most outback town you can imagine in Australia probably. Can you imagine what people must have thought? Anyway, what you do as a teenager — we got really drunk out there. But they'd been travelling and racing professionally for years and years, it's awesome. They've now evolved into a full festival where they have rodeo,

\[01:08:40\] and what they call the Ironman, where they do things like wood chopping — instead of just running events, they've now got a kind of outback event, folded into an Ironman event. But they also have a like an adventure run as part of that. So you're right, Dirt and Dust, triathlon — just having a bit of a Google, if you look up Dirt and Dust Festival Julia Creek, that's an experience out there for the weekend, because everyone from around the town comes in for the weekend for all the events. It's only in a couple of weeks, from the 11th to the

\[01:09:11\] 13th of April. Should get out there — I don't think we'll get out there this year, but you know, in the future, if you want to see some stuff, there's so many good outback Queensland festivals going on, like Australia's Best Butt competition, we could get into that, you could enter that, Liam. I'm more than happy to jump into the triathlon, probably the adventure run out there — actually I don't think they run the triathlon there anymore, I think they've moved it to an adventure run. I'll leave some of these for a few weeks' time, because we've

\[01:09:43\] got a lot of stuff going on, we just keep finding more and more to talk about. I'm going to throw a bit of gear in here — ASICS have just released a tradie shoe, I saw these, and they've got a BOA — that's the ratchet system you use on cycling shoes, some trail shoes use it too now. What do you reckon, is it a case of the shoe companies getting greedy? Well, look, I think it's a case of

\[01:10:17\] ASICS having shoe expertise, footwear expertise, right — and if that's your core business, why wouldn't you look at expanding into other avenues? I suppose, and I think that's what they've done here, and it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch for them. The irony, of course, is me talking about a work boot that I'll never need to wear — I have no need for work boots in my life, I'm not going to. It would be like me commenting on International Women's Day — you don't need to hear from me

\[01:10:49\] on that one. I'll never be on site wearing one of these boots, so I'm not going to tell tradies whether they're good or not, but it made me think — because when I first saw them I thought, why the hell have they put out a tradie shoe, and it made me think, actually Salomon, something I've always thought about ordering for years but never really got around to, they actually have tactical boots, like for soldiers. Why do you need those? Why not, Liam?

\[01:11:19\] If you can, why not. When would you ever wear those? I've just brought up the picture of those. When would you ever wear those? I could see myself liking those. If I was just walking through the bush, they're stylish, why not have the best? Those are — I could see those becoming a trend. That's a trend, absolutely. The thing is, this is why I keep

\[01:11:50\] forgetting about them — it was only the tradie shoes from ASICS that made me think of it — they don't sell them in normal channels, you've actually got to go into specialty stores for that. So if you're an influencer who decides you want to be on trend, you're going to have to walk into a tactical outdoor store, and you're probably going to find guns or something in that store as well, you're out there. Alright, Liam, well good luck for the run this weekend — by the time you're listening to this, you'll probably be right out there on the course, and probably standing on the podium at some point. I can't wait to speak to you afterwards and hear all the war stories. Yeah, now this is going to be

\[01:12:22\] great, I can't wait to tell everybody about the experience. I'm going to try and get a bit of footage while I'm running, to give people an insight into what the whole thing's like, we'll get that up on the Instagram page as well. So don't forget, this kunanyi review race and having a chat about it with Salomon after the fact will drop probably Sunday or Monday — ready for your Monday morning, if you're out running, and this is where — you marathoners, if you're running Gold Coast, if you're running Sydney later on, and you

\[01:12:53\] want to get an earlier experience of what it's like, and you've got your 12-week training block ready — we're not going to be providing you a 12-week training block, this is an assist, this is something for you to listen along to as you go through your own 12-week block journey leading into the Gold Coast. You'll be going through the same things that Liam and Bronte are going to go through: nutrition, recovery, sessions, overtraining, all of that — food, recovery, nutrition,

\[01:13:23\] the taper — we're going to cover all of it. And this Wednesday is the first episode, where you get to know Coach Benita Willis, Australia's greatest ever distance runner. You'll get an insight into what has made her who she is today, why she coaches the way she does, all the achievements through her athletic career. She sits down with us, incredible stories — you'll definitely want to listen to it no matter what level of running you're interested in. Can't wait for it, get on board.