EP 29 - GATORADE OR POWERADE?

[00:00] In the beginning, episode 29 — Courtney, we are back. It feels like I saw you just yesterday and we're back here again. It's been a whirlwind for the pod and for the two of us — a big week. Yeah, three episodes dropping this week for the first time. Why not go from one to three? Make it easy, hey. So how are your legs? Obviously we were down in Tasmania last weekend running the Salomon kunanyi Golden Trail series. It's cool. Very, very quickly, welcome to all the new subscribers — yes, because we

[00:33] do have a bunch of you. Welcome, share the love, you'll enjoy it, bring some friends, it's going to be fun. My DOMS are real — have been real since kunanyi last weekend. Quads, it's all been about the quads. It's the top of the legs, it's the quads. For anybody that's ever done any hill work, you know that for the most part I'm a front-foot striker when I run, so my calves, if anything, on the flats is typically where I put a lot of that pressure through. When you start running ups and downs, it's the downhill quads,

[01:05] the lower towards your knee. It's a unique pain when you're not used to it — that was 1000 metres downhill in pretty much a straight line. I knew you would. Here, but this is where — and I want to talk to you a bit about recovery later, because I don't know if I've been doing it right — but yesterday I took the opportunity, we've had a bit of grey wet weather here on the coast, and I took the opportunity of the clear skies to mow the lawn — decent whipper-snipper lawn at my place.

[01:37] So it takes me an hour to do this thing, and it had grown for a few days, but also my whipper-snipper's cooked at the moment, so I was basically looking after the fence line by hand, with scissors — no, I was just ripping out the big clumps of grass and stuff. But that action of bending at the waist with the DOMS still in the quads and pulling at the grass — I've woken up today and my right hamstring is not happy.

[02:07] It is strained, and I'm like, what's that from? I kind of tried to redo that action of pulling out grass and I'm like — oh. Anyone who's a tradie out there is probably listening to you going, bending over and picking up grass, yeah, I bend over and pick up literally kilos of stuff, old hat. But how do you think we feel if you're a runner who's not a tradie week to week and you have a big session or whatever, and then you go and do these household chores — it's

[02:37] different. Yeah, it's a different feeling. So the DOMS are still there — I'm actually going for a massage later on today, but I haven't done a thing so far. OK, what about you? Got a question for you: Powerade or Gatorade? Where do you sit? Gatorade. Gatorade — why Gatorade? Don't know, because honestly, I drink both. Yeah, look, actually, if I'm being completely honest, whichever one's on special. Yeah, that's probably the answer most people would give — whoever's got the two-for deal at the servo on the day gets my

[03:08] business. Do you reckon there are loyalists out there who, even if it's two-for-one on Powerade, still buy the Gatorade and pay double the price? There must be, but I don't see why you would. I don't know enough about — I mean, this is your world, what's the — no, it was a question that came up and I think it's a great question. Like, what are you? I'm Gatorade. I'm actually Maximus — you're actually Maximus, we know this — but Maximus doesn't sit in that brand category, it's just Gatorade and Powerade. Like if you watch footy on the weekend, there's like, you know,

[03:41] if you watch the footy sidelines at a football match on the weekend, NRL, AFL, they're either Powerade or Gatorade. If you walk into the servo, it's Powerade or Gatorade, you're just always positioned with sports drinks. You know the traditional two — Powerade and Gatorade. I'm Gatorade 'cause I love the whole story behind it, the old days of college football, the Florida Gator, I love the marketing behind it, so I've always been a Gatorade person. But I'm fine, and there's a lot of Powerade crew out there. You're Gatorade above cost point, so like if you walked into

[04:12] either, above cost point — yeah, exactly, that's why. That's why I like Maximus. If you walked into the service station tomorrow, Gatorade's there at five bucks a bottle and you can get two Powerades for six, on the two-for, every day — that's an interesting consumer behaviour, if you're that loyal to a product that's arguably identical. Let me ask you this then, as a comparison — if you walked into a service station craving cola,

[04:45] yeah, a can of Coke's going to cost you four bucks, or you could get Pepsi. This is different though, Liam, because Pepsi and Coke — well, it's called Coke, is the main brand — they taste distinctively different. They are, whereas Powerade and Gatorade — alright, let me try again. Let me try again with Coke versus — like, what was it, Lift? Remember Lift? If you like — I think a better example is Kirk's Lemonade. Here we go.

[05:15] Great — Kirk's Lemonade, which is a low price point, which is actually Coca-Cola's product as well. Interesting. Versus Sprite, which is going to be at a higher price point. I'm not — price point, for me, still, I'm not buying it if I can get Kirk's at 75%, 50% of the cost. The flavour profile of Sprite's not winning me over. Yeah, I mean, I like Kirk's better. Yeah, I actually do see that even in lemonade there is a

[05:46] slight taste profile difference. Can we — I don't think there's any — can we continue this exercise? This is why. The question was Powerade and Gatorade, because I don't think — someone's going to call me out — I don't think you can tell the difference. Oh no, you can tell the taste, this is a taste difference. Yeah, but let me pivot, because I don't think the taste difference is so significant that someone would go yum to one and yuck to the other. It's about purpose, right, and brand loyalty regarding the

[06:16] purpose of the product. So let me provide another point of comparison — if you were to walk in, let's go into a hypothetical world where you're not sponsored by Salomon for a moment. Let's do it. And you walk in and there's a set of black shorts for fifty bucks and there's a set of black

[06:46] shorts for twenty-five bucks. The fifty-dollar shorts, from all appearances they're the same pair of shorts — the fifty-dollar pair has a swoosh tick on it and the twenty-five dollar pair has no marking on them. Which pair of shorts are you buying? Depends on the purpose and the mood, I mean, a pair of running shorts. Yeah, but going on, that's the answer, it depends on my mood and the purpose. Interesting — I have bought, going back a few years, I've actually gone into Big W, and Big W have an active

[07:18] range, do they really? Yeah, like — it was Kmart, maybe it was Kmart, but they've got a little label on it, a little logo, probably come straight out of Taiwan or China or wherever, and they're good enough. Yeah, they're good enough. They're no Salomon, like those Salomon shorts, there's a level where you're paying for the material, the premium. But I think once you're down at that lower price point, so even a fifty-dollar pair of shorts, they're not going to be that much different to a twenty-five. However, when you then start to get up into that really high

[07:50] range of materials, there is a difference. So I think there's a threshold point where I'd probably go for the lower cost up to a point, and then you hit your tipping point where the money invested — you get to a level of, if I'm spending this money, I want the best, I'm willing to pay for a brand. Do you know, I hadn't paid for a brand, but today I was looking to book this massage and I was looking around — not you, but I'm looking around because I

[08:22] couldn't get into the place I normally go, Gold Coast Physio, because they're all booked out. That's fine, but I still really wanted to get one today because of where my legs are at, and I'm looking around, and for an hour massage from most places you're looking at sort of $120. Right. I found a place in Coolangatta which had a massage advertised at $160 for an hour, and I did the same face you just did. My face went, $160? That's a lot, right, versus $120.

[08:52] It's my body — if ever I'm going to put my hand in the pocket for that extra forty bucks, surely it's your body that's worth the investment. Surely. This wasn't like a Thai place — no, no, no, no, no. This is proper remedial. OK, so a sports — remedial, much rather than — reputable. Yeah, a reputable branded place. But isn't it, like, that was the process I had —

[09:23] $160 for a massage. Well, I don't know if I'll get a rebate, but I'm going to draw the line on that. What's your — how much? I think I've ended up going to a place where, before health insurance rebates, $120 I could handle, OK, but $160 is unless you're at like a luxury — I think it was one of those spa joints, yeah. OK, well maybe that's why you got to pay for the rent. Anyway, the point is, when you walk into the service station,

[09:55] think carefully about what products you choose. Think — are you a Powerade or a Gatorade? What flavour? Oh, probably go for the original blue. Blue, yep. Some of the lemonade flavours popping around at the moment, they're good too. OK. Hey, I've got — we talked about your eight-week challenge, talking about your DOMS. For those who haven't listened, a few episodes back, Liam was in an eight-week challenge and had your body scanned — yeah, DEXA scanned. Yeah, we kind of debunked that

[10:26] to a degree. How's it going, did you win? It's actually finished — yep, finished the week of kunanyi. I haven't gone back for the second scan, haven't had an opportunity to, I've been busy and haven't had a chance to book it in. Let me take you on the journey real quick though. I think from a purely weight perspective, I'm about three kilos lighter, which is a huge amount over two months to lose three kilos, but I would also say I've

[10:57] put on a lot of muscle mass through my shoulders and my chest, I'm as big through here as I've been probably since I played footy. Oh, I've generally got bigger through my chest, so there's probably been some fat loss and some muscle gain, which is great. The truth of the eight-week journey for me was I was diligent and strict for the first four weeks from a diet perspective, and the second half got a little bit

[11:27] slippery, fell back into some of the old snacking habits — through the first month, the first four weeks, I was no sugar, wasn't eating any sugar. Did you feel OK? Yeah, I felt great, I felt great. Second half I probably slipped back into having, you know, an ice block at home with the kids and snacking on chocolate or whatever. So I'm not looking at it thinking I would have won, because I've seen some pictures of some

[11:58] of the blokes that did the full eight weeks and they look ripped, they've raw-dogged it, they've committed, they look like they've been in a Tibetan monastery doing everything right for the last eight weeks. So well done to them. The takeaway for me has been that my physical makeup — I train regularly, that's never been a question for me, I've been doing a little bit more weight stuff than I normally have over the last few years — it's diet, it's

[12:29] self-control. It all starts with food. For me it's self-control at the fridge, at the shops, at the cupboard. I'm no dietitian, don't claim to be, but it's pretty common sense that you can't run off it if you eat too much. There's no running or exercise in the world that's going to make up for overindulgence — you can't outrun a bad diet. There's got to be balance to the scales, and I have never calorie

[12:59] counted — did you? I never calorie counted either, it was just my brain going, well, that doesn't fit in with what you're trying to do. It's a good way to approach it if you want to be balanced — a good start would be I just shouldn't have as much of that, or I probably shouldn't eat the chocolate at night, or maybe just don't have it in the house for the next four weeks. Yeah, the hard thing for me was having an eight-year-old and a four-year-old, and my wife eats really

[13:31] well, but the snacks are usually in the house because I've bought them, or because there's something for the kids' lunchboxes. So not having it in the house was a challenge because the kids — you always have stuff in the house for the kids. Can I ask you, because I think we've talked about this while running once before — you've talked a bit about operating at a calorie deficit, or certainly trying to lose weight whilst improving your running. We talked a little bit about it,

[14:02] I think we were on a trail run maybe. I don't think I'd ever say I'm in calorie deficit because I've never actually calorie counted in that way — throughout my career I had dietitians and we always looked at it as a real holistic approach, so I never got down to the calorie counting. However, when I train properly and eat pretty healthy, I get to a weight — that's the balance I'm talking about. If I was in full-load training,

[14:32] the focus would be making sure you get enough carbohydrates and enough food in, the right nutrients to be able to do what you're going to do, versus going the other way of being like, I need to restrict what I'm eating because I want to lose weight. The times I've really lost weight and it's worked in a short period of time, I've got sick — so it wasn't necessarily planned, I've got sick, I've lost a lot of weight, I've come back, and it's been like — what's that drug in America,

[15:04] they're taking, Ozempic — it'd be like going on Ozempic for a few weeks or a month, however long it takes, and then suddenly, keeping the strength you had, and then suddenly going out to race and I was underweight. And then after that I broke. Yeah. That's the big thing, and that's what some people — as we prove with my collapsed-lung theory, I'm not a doctor, but that's what they say the danger around Ozempic is, that if people don't incorporate it as part of training with gym strength, they actually

[15:34] lose all of their strength. I'm not on Ozempic, I don't get it. Just going back to what you were talking about, having enough nutrition to train, because there will be people listening to this who, as well as their running focus — I think a lot of influencers probably don't appreciate, run influencers don't appreciate, if you're at a level where you're

[16:05] considered an influencer in the running space, your physique is one that will cause envy amongst your followers. You generally — we probably shouldn't say influencer, if you have influence, that's a better way to put it. You can have influence, you can be a local coach of a club and have influence, but you're not on social media being an influencer. No, no, no, if you have influence, I think there's a good way to look

[16:35] at it. But I'm talking about — I think what I'm referring to is that there's this run boom that we're enjoying, and it brings with it all these people wanting to embark on running challenges, and I think there's probably a percentage of that audience who are also attempting to improve the way they look, as well as their health. Understandably — totally normal human behaviour. I'm guilty, the reason I went on this eight-week challenge was to,

[17:05] get a little bit healthier, but also, you know, I'm turning 41 this year, I'd like to keep it tight for the missus, sure, and for myself. But it's that idea of — you talk about continuing to train and making sure you have enough nutrients and energy fuel coming in — how do you manage that, how do you know what that is? How did you know what that was when you were at your peak, and how do you know what it is now? Oh, good question. By weight, the

[17:35] honest answer — it might not be the right answer, but this is for you, we're only talking for you here, it's right for you. For me it was like looking in the mirror and the scales — I knew I had a general idea, if you're consistent, and I think this is a better way to look at it, if you know when you're fit, when you're feeling good, my weight normally fluctuates between 67 and 70. If I'm in that range, I know I'm pretty healthy as an athlete — by the way, this isn't necessarily for everyday people,

[18:05] this is me as an athlete, I'm healthy there. If I'm up at 72 and I want to run well, I'm like, I'll probably need to lose a few kilos to be at my peak, to be able to run better — if I lose that weight, I'm going to run better, and that's where you'd then adjust. I'd adjust something, whatever that intake, but that adjustment could be two things — turn the training dial up, or turn the food dial down. You've got two dials, here we go, we've got an analogy going. You've got the diet dial and you've

[18:36] got the training dial. Yeah, and if training's the dial — you can think, oh, it's just the food dial, but the other dial is the training dial, and you can manipulate them together. This is great — so if you manipulate those both together, and again, it comes into that balance of how you look at it, well, then you're going to have different outputs, right. But if you're maxed out at training and you're still not getting that result, you can only turn the food dial — that's when there may be a bit more of an issue, because you

[19:07] might be at your maximal training, you're eating enough to get yourself through that maximal training, and then suddenly you need to reduce something — if that's your goal, then that's where people go off the rails a bit, right? I don't know, but that's how, personally, you can adjust that. I looked at it as, this is my weight, I know what range I need to be in. But you can also look in the mirror and go, you know, I'm — and I'm talking performance here, like I'm

[19:38] performance-fit, ready to go. When I was racing, I look at photos back when I was at my peak in triathlon, and then I was also swimming, so my body composition was a lot different to what it is now — I don't have the muscle mass up top that I had when I was a triathlete, so you could argue I was even heavier back then. But that's performance, right. I think the goal I'm now looking at is I just want to be healthy, but if I'm running, I also want to be at the right weight to be able to run well, so it's a happy

[20:08] medium. I've really enjoyed this chat, it's a happy medium, and I think people listening will have got a lot out of that, yeah. Hey, we're doing — obviously the big news is we've already put the interview out with Benita. In case you missed it, go back and have a listen, Benita's amazing, and her coaching Liam and Bronte, one of your colleagues as well, for the Gold Coast Marathon. Did you see the day Gold Coast gave us a shout-out, which is great, the Gold Coast Marathon gave us a shout-out for their April Fool's joke about the course — my WhatsApp,

[20:38] my immediate WhatsApp group blew up. Every year people still get taken, every year — tell people what it was, it was great. So there was a post, a social post by Gold Coast ASICS Gold Coast Marathon, and they put out that they were going back to the 1970s course, six laps around, instead. That's the new course this year, and there were people who were blowing up — I got a message from someone saying, you're ready to get dizzy

[21:10] at the Gold Coast Marathon this year, 'cause they were going to revert back to this course, which would have started at the Hota and then six laps around, basically doing boring loops past Chevron Island, along the front, past Pacific Fair, and then back around through the Isle of Capri. And what, do I get my money back, of course? What a boring course that would have been, would it? Yeah, here's the thing, really, I mean, yeah, but there's also something in lap

[21:40] races that's interesting, not with 30,000 people, that would be a nightmare. How many people run the marathon, we'll get that proper information — it's 30,000 total. Do you like lap races? I like lap races, because — and this is going to be a real elitist point of view here — well, talking about any race as a lap race is probably elitist anyway, because for most of us, when we run an event, it's not really a race.

[22:10] Do you know why I like the lap race? Because generally when I'm racing or running in other sports, I'm towards the front of the field. Once that field at the front breaks up, it's a time trial, I'm running on my own, I don't see people. What a lap race does is it actually includes you — I get included in the big race, I get, when you pass people, when you come around on the second lap, you're actually in an event. You've probably never thought about this — I never have, from the

[22:42] other side of it. You think, if you've got five elites in a race and they run off, you know, quite quick, you're at the front of the race, you then split up, you enter a race, you pay money, but arguably you could just go out and do that on your own in a time trial. It's a really good point. I've raced half Ironmans, so 70.3s as they're called these days, in that distance it's about a four-hour race where I've broken away at the start of the swim and then

[23:14] never seen another person till the end of the race. Yeah, so by yourself, what race are you even in, what have I done — I could've done this as a training session, in effect a high-intensity time trial. So when you put a lap course into that, at least, and I think this is a very individual observation here, for me this is the problem, for not many people — very few people have ever had — there might be a couple of people listening who've led their parkrun the whole way, that's why I'm championing lap courses.

[23:45] No one else will like it, but yeah, there were some blow-ups, it was good. Well done, Gold Coast Marathon, that was a very good one, very, very good. Now, have you heard of the Ancient Order of Froth Blowers? Say that again. The Ancient Order of Froth Blowers. No, I've seen this though, I love this, this was an awesome thing — I don't know why, our algorithms must be synced up, because this popped up in my feed as well. Have a listen: the first Geelong Pubathon, fifteen watering holes with a seven-ounce glass of beer in each, spread out over two and a half miles.

[24:20] Certainly a test of endurance, if not straight-out masochism. 28 teams started, each from different pubs, and the winning team of six would take out the somewhat pretentious title of the Ancient Order of Froth Blowers Perpetual Trophy. The whole thing was sponsored by the Geelong Rugby Club with the specific aim of putting them on the sporting map — well, it did, because it was picked up back then in 1978 in Geelong by all the media outlets, and it's obviously just popped its head up on social media, everything.

[24:52] But they said, back when men and men were men, Aussies were fair dinkum and fun was part of the fabric of Australia — our generation, so obviously back then, that was before I was born. Our generation saw and lived the best of it. What do you reckon, did they? It's great fun, this is great fun. I don't know if we need to go into what has now become something of an outdated idea of masculinity, but

[25:22] there were — there was plenty of fun, I watched the video, there's plenty of women doing this too, it's just fun. There's a German — or it's played in Austria, Germany and Switzerland — called Kastenlauf, which literally translates to beer-crate running, where teams have to get a crate of beer, probably a carton for us, and it's the first team to complete the race and drink the beer while they're carrying it. I actually tried to organise a race like this with a bunch of

[25:54] mates in Sydney years ago when I was still playing footy — with a backpack on, carry your beers. Well, this was going to be up to the teams, right, so it was teams of four. I think we were aiming — we had to run Centennial Park, which is sort of a 3.3K loop, and I think we set it out that you had to do three laps, so it was going to be 10Ks, and in a team of four, you had to get through a carton of beer and do the 10Ks, so it was — and it was like, hey,

[26:26] you can — you have to carry the beers while you run, though, so you can sit down and go through the carton of beer if you want at the start and then run, or you can run with the carton of beer and sit down at the finish line and drink — you figure out how you want to do it. We never actually ended up being able to do it because I just fell apart at the end. But I just think something like this is fun, it's just a fun thing. 100%, and I think that's why I think beer miles are fun. Yeah, because — what's the North

[26:56] Burleigh Paddle? When you're telling me about the paddle — yeah, when they go and stop off at every surf club along the way and then swim across the creek and stuff. No, this was the paddle, I don't know exactly how they do it, they paddle up to the creek, jump off the bridge and go back, there's beers along the way at certain stops. I love it — we've got a running boom on, we've got a fitness boom on, I think we probably as a society drink less than we used to, certainly compared to when I was growing up.

[27:26] The teenagers, the 18-year-olds, 21-year-olds, from all statistics, drink less, and that can only be a good thing. But I still think things like this are fun, a bit of fun. Beer miles are fun, you can find a way to incorporate health, fitness, exercise, with community and camaraderie doing some stuff like that. Life's for living. Go on — if someone wants to come up with one of these things, mark me down, I love it. You just jogged my memory when

[27:58] we're talking about carrying beer, or a case of beer, and thinking how hard that'd be to run within a backpack, because I feel like — what would a case of beer be, about 10 kilos? Can't be, oh, it's going to be heavier than that, I'd say it's more like 15 kilos. So I raced, prior to COVID, just prior to COVID, I raced up in China in a team adventure race with four people, a multi-day, I think it was three or four days. We got to the start line, by the way, can't be 15 kilos — right, got to the start line, the first

[28:29] leg of the event, so there's four of us in the team, there was an old rickety kind of rickshaw bag you put on the back, and we had to fill it with boulders, rocks, stones, up to 30 kilos I think, from memory, and the first 3K of the run was carrying that before you got to get on your bike or whatever you did. They just throw these random — that's adventure racing, I love that nature. Not the one I did the year before, Red Bull Defiance, there

[28:59] was one you had to get the rock from the bottom of the river, kind of like the Waterman — yeah, you had to jump off, well, we've talked about a few, 'cause I talked about that race I did down in Tassie that started you had to cut through the lot with a sword. This is another one I remember starting where — we had no idea, you turned up and there's a bag full of rocks you have to carry for the first 3K. This makes things interesting — experiences, yep. Just quickly, did you know on kunanyi over the weekend, in the 66K race, at some of the aid stations they were giving out nips of whiskey? I hope — well, I didn't know

[29:31] because I didn't get out there, but yeah, I heard this, yeah, amazing. I wonder how many took it. Oh jeez, I don't know if I'd — want to warm you up, it was cold up there, would've been cold. I did the 24 where they were going, it was 3.5 degrees where you passed the pinnacle, so I reckon further into the bush it would've been even colder. We got sent some stuff — I love it when people send stuff that's popped up on their algorithms, and this bloke in particular, Matt's Lying — yeah, but you know what, I don't have it, so we might have to skip that one, that one.

[30:01] Matt's Lying, if you love your running, this bloke does some great running parody stuff, running comedy stuff. But what about this one from Track House? Well, it's going to be a lucky dip, but Track House was training for a marathon, let's see — I'm a bit superstitious, but no, this is Matt's Lying, William levels. This is Matt's Lying: I'm a new PR supinate, nice to meet you. Typically Mondays and Wednesdays I'll start off by hitting three by four Winnebago walkers, then instantly transition into a three by twelve triangulated track-start

[30:31] intensive. At this point in our training programme there's no time to ease into it with something like a delineated dash drill. Tuesdays and Thursdays I'll crank out six to seven mile minutes at a lactose threshold pace, followed by a long perspiratory unloading phase — gives my fibres a chance to open out fluids and allows me to micromanage my convectional cycles. I'm looking for some extra volume on the weekends, I'll easily throw together some far-folly 550 sets. You get the idea — having fun with terminology in the running world. Do you know anyone who's like this,

[31:01] just loves throwing out all the technical terms, the zone two stuff, always has to — do you know what, I don't have one of these runners in my life right now. No, I reckon we all need one. I'm just trying to think who'd be closest to that for me. But I reckon we all need one of these, they're good to have, as long as you — it's like they can tell you everything about the shoe, what rubber it is, how it is. I'm probably that for some of my less experienced running mates with my limited knowledge, but no, this next one — the

[31:33] caption of this one is: don't get shirty with yourself. I'm off the ball today, you're still preparing. No, no, no, you're going to know it — this clip you're about to hear is from the Track House account on Instagram, and the idea is that everybody, no matter what age you are, you are still preparing for your best marathon. What age do you peak as a runner? Whether you're aiming for a new 5K time or gunning for Olympic gold, the latest data on when humans peak as endurance runners is fascinating. Marathon great Eliud Kipchoge didn't run his official fastest

[32:04] marathon until he was 37, which is already an indication that you might be years away from your best form. Studies have shown that your aerobic capacity doesn't peak until around 30, and from there you'll likely have to wait until your experience in efficiency and pacing has developed until you peak. The true answer is that you may not peak as an endurance runner until you're 40 — the best estimate is that you'll find your peak form between 30 and 40. Some recreational runners improve well into their 40s and 50s, especially if they start

[32:36] running later in life. British marathon runner Priscilla Welch didn't begin seriously training until she was 35, and she won the 1987 New York City Marathon at age 42. Your best is yet to come, so why aren't you running? And that, for most of our audience, is the truth — your PBs are still ahead of you, 100%, your PBs are still ahead of you. Look, we don't have the science behind that, that's something on social media, but I think the premise of what they're talking about is true. You can start late, Liam, you've

[33:10] got your goals, you're in your prime right now — this is why I heard you're in your prime, ready to go, at 40, 100% ready to go for your PBs, it's only just starting. I had a conversation with a mutual friend of ours yesterday who happens to be involved in sport at a very elite level, and we were having a giggle because of the reel that you put up during the week where Benita Willis basically crushed my sub-three dreams, crushed your dreams on day one of the training for

[33:43] this year. She said it's going to be very tough for me to go sub-three at the Gold Coast Marathon, and your face in the background of that video is something we need to talk about — a lot of people have commented on the fact that as soon as Benita started talking, you knew what was coming. I knew what was coming and you were smiling away in the background — that's the second time you've hung me out to dry in front of elite runners. Anyway, talking to this person who's involved in elite sport at the pointy end, he watched that clip and he said, mate,

[34:13] that should just be fuel — what Benita said, how Courtney reacted, that should just be fuel to the fire, and when you cross that finish line at Gold Coast in two hours and fifty-nine minutes, he'll absolutely give them both the bird. Wait, maybe — we don't know this, but maybe that is Benita's tactic, come in low, don't over-promise, but over-deliver. She's playing chess, I'm just here playing checkers.

[34:45] You never know, you never know. Now I can't trust anything she says, you've ruined it now. Well, that's — she's being as honest as they come. I can't believe you've got Benita Willis training you, I'm genuinely excited. Yeah, well remember, we were down in Tassie, standing around the dinner table, and you were just talking about Benita, and everyone was kind of listening to you — I think they were elite runners, right, and they were kind of listening to you thinking, what is this, what is this?

[35:18] I'd said some dumb running things, not realising I was surrounded by professional runners basically. And then one of them clicked and went, it's Benita Willis training you? And then they all went silent. From that point on, I think they were like, we should take this guy seriously. And then they saw me run kunanyi and said, maybe we shouldn't take this guy seriously after all. A big one — we reached out to everyone, everyone listening to us, what other podcasts do they listen to, because we're interested.

[35:49] Like, is it other running podcasts, is it — look, there was no real consensus, it was all over the place. A bit of Noah Lyles, some sprint stuff in there, Diary of a CEO, there was a bit of Rogan, which is to be expected, a bit of Rich Roll, The Free Trial podcast, which — I've lost his name — Red Bull, American guy does The Free Trial, Boulder Boys, which is run out of Boulder. What else was in there? There's a couple of Australian

[36:19] ones — Dylan Bowman, Dylan Bowman, ultra runner, there was a couple around, surprisingly. I was thinking, because there's obviously some real core elite running podcasts in Australia, like Inside Running, these are all more geared, they talk quite high-end running, I was expecting to see a lot more of them coming through, there were obviously a few but it was really just a little bit. Dan Does Footy, Cheeky Runkle — have you heard of Cheeky Runkle? I didn't know they did a podcast.

[36:50] Yeah, and then there was one who nearly hit mine on the head, so — you're a man very similar to my taste, for sure. But what are you listening to at the moment, Liam? I like to dip my toe into the waters of various different podcasts at times, but the three I'm hitting with consistency, I rarely miss an episode of Bill Simmons. Bill Simmons is massive, I know a lot of people, a lot of people listen to that one. And for those that don't

[37:20] know it, it's kind of just an all-American sport type thing, he talks a lot of NBA, a lot of NFL. The episodes I enjoy most with him are when he does this thing a couple of times a year called The Future of Everything, and he gets in one particular gentleman whose name eludes me, and they basically make predictions about things in the world of sport, the world of politics, the world of comedy — it's great, really, never miss an episode of Bill Simmons. There's a Spotify podcast in New

[37:51] Zealand called The Morning Shift, it's more like a radio show really, but it only exists on streaming, it's not on radio. These three Kiwi guys talk a lot of New Zealand stuff. What's this one called, The Morning Shift? Oh, it is the morning — it's called The Morning Shift, and if there's any Kiwis out there who listen to us, they'll automatically know who these guys are. They're probably the cool Hamish and Andy of New Zealand, for lack of a better description. The episodes aren't that long,

[38:21] sort of half an hour to 40 minutes maybe, but coming back to this point, with all those comments our audience have made about what they listen to, it's just the energy and chemistry amongst these three, whether they're talking about a hikoi being performed in the New Zealand House of Parliament, or a hypothetical they've seen on TikTok, or the All Blacks, the energy, the chemistry amongst the three of them, it's just an easy thing to listen to. Really enjoy it.

[38:51] And the other one I'll throw out there is Hamish and Andy, it's a weekly spot, and those two — everyone knows Hamish and Andy, yeah, I know, but if you don't listen to their podcast — it just comes back to it being the chemistry, right, they can make talking about their kids' swimming lessons, or trying to get up there because they're playing before Collingwood-Carlton at the MCG on a Friday night for the purposes of some English bloke, anything can be entertaining because of the way

[39:22] they talk about it. And what's this Off Menu one? Off Menu was on there as well, it's an English — it's these two comedians who, the premise that draws me in is they invite celebrities in to run through their dream menu, a dinner menu — starter, main, side dish, drink, dessert. It's great, I love English comedy. You had me up to that one, I don't think you'd sell me on that one, listening.

[39:52] You know what, and that's what I haven't recommended to Courtney — perfect, because tell everybody, what are your three go-tos? Well, it probably says a lot about my personality, right. Well, obviously Rogan's one of them. Apex Hunters — have you heard of Apex Hunters? I've heard of it. This is Scotty — well, Scott Pye, he still drives the endurance races in Supercars for Red Bull Racing or Triple Eight Racing, but what he's done is he's got together with a mate and they talk about Supercars but also NASCAR and a range of things.

[40:22] But in an industry that's so driven by mainstream media, right, and has been for a long time — the TV stations own it — they've stepped just outside the box and they bring up the real issues, they talk to the drivers and they don't hold anything back. From what I understand, initially they actually got a lot of pushback on it, to the point of a couple of legal things, right, but

[40:54] with consistency and just keeping at it and believing, they've actually got over that hump, and now they've got partners on board, and if you're into any type of motor racing, they're one of those easy listening podcasts. But the other day they had on Shaw and Partners, they'd just bought a stake — yeah, they'd just bought a stake in the Red Bull Ampol Racing team, and the way they gave out the information about how they do deals, what they come up against in their industry, of

[41:25] finance, but also in the car industry — this is stuff behind the scenes, stuff you never hear. Does Earl Evans, the big boss of Shaw and Partners, does he run by any chance? No — don't know, don't know, he looks after the surf life saving, oh yeah, huge, huge supporter. And then the third one I spoke about the most, down at F1 with them the other week, is Alpha Blokes. I know that's like when I'm driving to the spit for my Tuesday run, we drop our episode on a Saturday, it'll always be ready

[41:57] on a Saturday morning, they always drop an episode Tuesday morning, I get in the car, go to 7-Eleven to get a coffee, and in that half hour, that's my listening. And it's consistency, right, that word you just used — consistency. And I think when I look at the episodes and podcasts people have said they've enjoyed listening to, it all comes back to — my personal opinion is people put podcasts on because they want to be

[42:30] entertained, but they also want to feel like they're part of an intimate medium, not to get too technical — and I work in radio, and radio is a very intimate medium as well, different to TV. We're sitting in one of my spare bedrooms — literally, in your spare bedroom — but I think what I enjoy about what we're doing, and some of the feedback I've had, is that it doesn't sound like some manager somewhere has gone, alright, well, let's see if we can create a podcast about running, why don't we get a guy who knows a bit about radio, we'll grab that Liam bloke from Triple M, and then we'll

[43:01] probably need someone who's like an elite or an expert on it, oh, let's go and get Courtney Atkinson, alright, you two, you're going to do a podcast — and it doesn't sound like we've been put together in a lab, right. You and I were friends before this, we were running together before this, and we're just extending the conversations we'd have on the trail into your spare room, as it is. But what's interesting is — this is what we're talking about, how this all came about — we started at the studio, right, and I said, no, let's just come home, for the sake of it,

[43:31] it can be just at home, it's more, and it's more, I'd rather you come to the house and hang out and whatever, so it's great. Yeah, that's all I've got to say, thank you to everybody sharing those podcasts, because Aussie Gordon, who says this is the only podcast he listens to — very, very smart, mate, very sharp of you, very, very sharp of you. You received a text quotes, I did, mate, Brett down in Sydney talking about the Sydney Marathon and talking about, do you know how much they've

[44:02] announced they're giving the top five male and female Australians — so this is prize money, this is above the race-winning prize money, this is just for the Australians, over and above what they've got for prize money on offer for the Sydney Marathon, this is year one, and I deliberately didn't read this because I saw it was on the run sheet. What do you reckon the first Australian male would be offering, on top of — I'm going to show my working for a second, because we did this with

[44:34] Eliud Kipchoge a couple of weeks back, and we hypothesised that he was earning a million dollars coming down to run the Sydney Marathon with everything included. So Sydney Marathon, first year as a major, do you know what the straight-up winner of the race gets, by any chance? Do you think I would, Liam? No, that's a silly question, I should have looked that up myself first. Australian, separate to the prize money — you're a major marathon, you're trying to incentivise your local athletes to be present and participate, you want to lure them with the carrot.

[45:05] I would say you'd need to be handing the first Aussie across the line in the men's and women's races a $20,000 cheque. You're low-balling, it's $30,000 they're going to give to the winners, the Aussie winners, the first-placed Aussies — yes, thirty grand, good day out if you can do that, and it's quite deep between the top five. Well, this is secondary information, but it's $30, $20, $10, $5, $2.5K total, and that's male and female.

[45:35] OK, so a total of $135K. I looked at this initially and when I first looked at it, I went, you know, it's good, but it's also low — but then I didn't take into account this is on top of what the race is offering. Yeah, this is actually — I see, actually Ben St Lawrence is in charge of the Elite Athlete programme, so maybe we can get some more info out of Benny on this. I'm doing a quick Google to see if I can

[46:07] figure out what the first-place winner of the marathon actually gets — yeah, 'cause when I typed in what does the Gold Coast Marathon get, out of curiosity, I've got that one up there, $15,000, and $5,000 bonus if they break the record — I don't know if that's the issue, that this year, that was last year, that was 2024. OK, yeah, well look, I think that's the — first time across the line, regardless of times and nationality, hey, I want to do a spot check on this as I usually do, because I just typed

[46:40] in the Sydney Marathon, what's the prize money, and it did actually pump out that prize pool. OK, well look, I like — right, if anybody knows the answer to this, or can pull back the curtain for us, we'd love to hear about it. I like the idea that the Sydney, the first Aussie major, has found a way to incentivise the local athletes to be part of it this year by offering this sort of money, because, look, ten grand to

[47:11] get on the podium — at worst you're walking away with ten grand in your pocket. So I just saw the press report, the press release, it's a guaranteed prize for the Australian Elite Athlete Programme, so that's on top of, but interestingly they don't announce, they're not putting up what the actual proper prize pool is. So prize money at the Melbourne Marathon last year, first place took home $25,000, that's not Australian-specific,

[47:41] that's just first took home $25K, second took home $10K, and third place took home $5K. Right, OK, one to look into, or if someone knows the exact answer — again, not something I'm going to worry about, that prize money in America. Well, it was when I thought about that, because we've been talking about it, I think people would be interested, but it comes back to the idea that it's only going to affect .001% of that field. Can I talk to you about recovery, please?

[48:11] Yeah, of course you can, Liam. I have had DOMS — what is it, Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, correct, in the biggest way possible this week. How do you think, in hindsight, I should have been spending the last seven days recovering, what would you have done? The thing is, you can't avoid DOMS — no, there's nothing you can do to avoid that, you've run downhill hard, yeah, you're going to get sore,

[48:44] even if you run — for more local people, if you run Bridge to Brisbane, you start when you go up the bridge and then you do that, I think it's about 1.3K down the bridge that will make you sore from that race. That was always one of the most sore races I'd come out of, and I'd try and run — it was 10-12K back in the older days, 10K, and running that hard, trying to break, I'd always try and go through 10K under 30 minutes, I would pull up worse from that race than I would from any

[49:14] triathlon, any other run race, because of that downhill, and it would — so it would give you the same sensation if you run City2Surf, I'd pull up worse from Bridge to Brisbane than City2Surf, really. City2Surf doesn't — yes it has that hard finish at the end, but you're always fresh when you run down the first hill at Bridge to Brisbane, so you fly down there as quick as you can. I think once you get a bit older, you manage yourself on the downhills a little bit, like when you were running on the weekend and you're running that 1000-metre downhill, you're losing 1000 metres in vert going

[49:45] downhill, you're kind of needing to nearly hold yourself back, and sometimes you're not fresh enough just to bomb down the whole thing — that's what really kills your legs. And the only way you can get ready for that is to go out and have that happen to you in training enough that your legs are getting stronger. Yeah, I do believe riding bikes and having, you know, quads conditioned from riding bikes can also help that. I never seemed to get sore when I was doing multiple sports, right, when I'm only running, I get a lot sorer. But to go back to the

[50:19] original — so that's on DOMS and downhill running. Going back to your original question around what you could do — I think the first thing you need to do is keep moving. Even when it's sore, you need to get those muscles moving, you can do that through just going for a walk, you probably don't want to go out and run, it can be a slow jog, a walk, massage, all those things you'd probably already talked about. In that case, it's not so much bruising, but trauma — your muscles have trauma, so this is where I'd probably

[50:49] go for an ice bath — ice baths, hot baths, anything to release those muscles could make a difference. That's the one time I'd probably jump in an ice bath after that, because it's trauma versus just pure normal recovery. So those are the things I'd be doing — I've kept moving, I've been walking as much as I can in my day-to-day, I've been on the foam roller a bit, though it's been too sore on my quads to get the foam roller

[51:21] onto it, but I've been using the foam roller around the back of the calves and around the Achilles, which has been great. Well, you've got to be careful with the DOMS — if the muscles have got trauma, you don't want to overdo it going in with the foam roller, that's another mistake. Just in general, I think with injuries, from my experience, if something's sore, you get a muscle knot or something into it and you overdo it, and what you actually do is you're trying to release it but you inevitably just make it worse because it gets aggravated and inflamed. And the other thing I did,

[51:53] which I meant to do again this weekend, because I don't think I'll be able to run this weekend still, maybe a light jog, but I jumped on the exercise bike at the gym for half an hour, no attempt to get the RPMs up or whatever, just a spinning movement — movement's key. I said to you too, I don't think it's — the fact you felt like that, and the fact you've recovered from that, if you recover properly from it, think how strong you'll be.

[52:25] I reckon it was a great run to do in that way, and now you've got a bit of recovery to lead into the marathon training block. I think that's — like if you can recover, and Benny's already said this, you want to have that fresh week before you get into the block, I think having that real smack-out and DOMS is only going to be beneficial if you let yourself recover properly from it, which I'm going to, because as I said, for those who've missed it, I have now taken out my running decision-making brain,

[52:55] it's gone, I've chopped out that part of my brain, I'm making no more decisions about my own running for the next 12 weeks, Benita Willis will be making every running decision for me. Quickly though, I sent a message on the morning of kunanyi to a mate, Brady, who was up here with us on the Goldie, and we went for a run around the ring — I told you about that, I tried out the S-Lab Genesis shoes for the first time because I wanted to run them in. He sent me a message on the morning of kunanyi and just said, you might — and we went out and did a 17K run with about 600 metres elevation in it.

[53:26] He said to me that run might come back to bite me on the morning of kunanyi, and I jokingly said, oh, what do you mean, it's like cramming for an exam, is it? Do you think a week prior to kunanyi that sort of run, 17Ks at 600 metres elevation, could have been detrimental? Potentially, if you'd been doing a few of them — it wasn't like it was your first, no, it wasn't new territory. It's a loaded question, in the sense that it could be

[53:56] detrimental if you'd only been running 10K a week on the flats and then you went and did that, but kunanyi was a completely different experience, right — 1000 metres, longer than 1000 up the mountain, you hadn't trained for that. No. So that's key — that's how your body then feels after you haven't trained for something. You'd progressively done some trial runs, you'd progressively got to that 17K, so yeah, you need to recover from that, but I don't

[54:27] think it'd be absolutely detrimental — one week out, you had seven days to recover, and it wasn't like you went out and just flogged yourself, no, we took it easy. But I think it's a good guide for anyone listening, across any distance, doesn't have to be about downhill running — if you go out and expose your body to something it hasn't done, like I did with overgearing a bike when the floods were on, your body's going to

[54:58] react in a way where it goes, oh, what have I done to myself, and if you don't listen to that, it'll cause yourself issues, whether that's I can't run as quick or I get injured. It's not like a Year 12 exam where you can cram last minute and get something out of it — you're better off going in under-prepared and failing the test, 100%. And I think we're going to find out a lot about this idea, probably — I don't think we'll be calling it cramming, but this idea, in the next 12 weeks, when you go through this with Benita, of how to react when things happen — yes, I miss a run,

[55:31] how should I — I've got a niggle, how should I adapt to that, I'm not hitting the pace, and also I haven't hit probably what I was prepared for, or the sessions I was going to do, how do I react to that? That's coming, we're not going to — I know you're not running, but how's the injury? Yeah, I mean I've been doing what the specialists are telling me, I've got plenty of people looking after me and giving me info, so it's all progressing. I've been on crutches when I'm out of the house as much as possible, around the house, kind of

[56:02] tiptoeing around a little bit. I've got in the lake and had a few swims, just in the past few days — I took 10 days completely off and just forgot about everything, no exercise, getting back in swimming, I'll be able to get back into some light riding in a couple of weeks. It's not — done a number on it, have next week — but I'm confident I'll get back and I'll be back running in no time, and love it — having the next scan, love it, you know the invite's going to come, Sydney Marathon's listening to this and going, oh jeez, we better get Courtney down.

[56:34] I am, I am going to run a marathon — here we go. I haven't lost the motivation, good, it's not like Gold Coast has, I have not lost the motivation to run a marathon, I still want to do it. And just like you, I will have the need of training, and taking that other run brain, because I don't want to make the same mistakes to myself, which is going overboard. One thing while we're on this too, I wanted to call out — so when the floods, well, when the cyclone was meant to hit the southeast a few weeks back,

[57:06] we talked about Red Bull Race the Sun, the event that's out here that goes from Gold Coast out to Tenterfield — we kind of needed to let the dust settle a little bit around, you know, it wasn't the — the southeast was going through a lot, wasn't it, wasn't the time to — wasn't the time to get out and push this, it is now the time to get out and push this. If you're in, if you've got a team of six mates, run clubs, two females need to be in each team, and you love doing, having experiences, you love getting out and doing

[57:36] different things and challenging yourself, go and Google Red Bull Race the Sun and you'll find the website, all the information's there, but applications are still open for that, and very soon we'll be locking down those teams. If you enjoyed when we spoke with Pete from Salomon on the episode, the special episode that dropped, if you haven't listened, go and check it out — Pete spoke about how his brand is looking into the idea of excursions, creating excursions and experiences for adults, bringing back that childlike idea of going on an excursion from school. Race the

[58:09] Sun, I haven't raced it, but I get the excursion vibe — you pile into a support car, a van with your team, someone's out there on the road running. In fact, I remember participating in runs at school, like, what did they call it, Taplin relays or something like this, yeah, in Adelaide, I remember we used to do races like this where you're in and out of the car and you're racing. This sounds like an awesome adult excursion for runners. It's an adult excursion for

[58:40] runners, Liam, and then when you get out to Tenterfield, everyone has a bit of a nap, and then Red Bull put on drinks and dinner out there at a regional town, at Bad Men's Cafe. Where do they sign up? Like I said, go and Google Red Bull Race the Sun, and that will link you straight to the website where you can read all the information and tick the applications box. And love it, yeah, I'd love to — we're interested to see what type of runners come out this year and take on the challenge to see if they can get there in under 24 hours. Love it, I don't like the idea of them getting

[59:11] there in under 24 hours, because of course, that's hard enough, well, it also means — this is dark and could be cold that time of year, what am I whinging about, I'm not running it. OK, now last week we also said we're going to keep on this, shouting out local events — yes, we talk a lot about all the big events. Ryan Kelso, one of our biggest fans of the podcast, yep, we talked about him trying to create a marathon out there at Armidale, and he was wanting to make sure there's a Clydesdale category named after the tractors.

[59:42] Good news, we'll link this in the show notes as well, the Armidale Running Festival is a go for 2026 — he's got it off the ground with the council, legend, and I'm sure they'll put on a great show, like I just talked about Tenterfield, I'm sure regional towns like Armidale are going to put a great show on. How come, and check that one out, mate, we've got to go to this. I know it's a year out, and how far is Armidale from —

[01:00:14] there, from Coffs, it's not that far away, it's almost a five-hour drive from where we are now. I think we should go, I think we need to talk to Ron, I could — I would love to support something like this in its first year, it could — look, I don't want to commit — yeah, yeah, pump the brakes, but Rhino, we're going to look into this, mate, it's great, you love the logo, it makes me want to go run there — Armidale Running Festival, go check it out. What am I — they'll be very busy this week, and I haven't been scouring the net as much as

[01:00:45] I usually do, oh dear. So gear-wise, I don't have a lot but — remember our conversation when we were talking about the Birkenstocks, the Birkenstock line, versus Crocs, and I was talking about how much I disliked Birks and wished I could wear thongs? Someone was listening — now, not going to give — what have you got? I'm not giving them a plug because I haven't tried them yet. Did someone send you something? Oh god, these got dropped off

[01:01:16] at the house, mate, I've got like premium — I can't even think how to describe them, OOFOS. These were mentioned by a few people — so, they're kind of like a slide that's meant to be a recovery slide, so I'm going to give them a whirl while I'm hobbling around. It's an interesting base, they're soft, that's all I know, very soft, not — I'm not advocating these yet, I'm just going to give them a whirl and a try. I can see, we're talking about

[01:01:48] gear, they've got a patent on there, I wonder what the tech is, what the tech is. I don't know a lot about them, but we're going to give them a whirl, good luck to you, but it's nice, it's nice when our call-outs are answered, I like — I love the look of them. Either — I might, if they're good, mate, we might have to try and get you a pair if they're any good, my address is — no look, I haven't had a look at gear honestly, I'm still — my gear is still in the Salomon clouds,

[01:02:18] my headgear is still in the Salomon clouds at the moment, got looked after — I called Pete, I asked you for his number, he's over in NSW, isn't he? Well yeah, he probably didn't appreciate the phone call, he's probably trying to board a plane when I called him. But I did just say thanks again, and I will say thanks again, because this for us is a passion project. And I mentioned in my Instagram post, I need to thank you as well, because you've opened up a lot of doors for me that previously I'd have had no business walking through, that would've been very much

[01:02:50] friendly, locked, turned away by the bouncer, I'd said, not tonight mate. But since we've started doing this, I've had an incredible opportunity to not only meet some very cool people, I got the ability to go and run an event I'd never run before, down in Tassie, but I've also been very spoiled with the shoes I've gotten to run in, which I just would never have bought — I just wouldn't have bought them for myself, because my running is at a level where I probably wouldn't have gone and chosen to spend that much money. So I do need to say a big thank you to you, a big thank you to Pete and the whole Salomon crew

[01:03:21] that were down there on the weekend, again, because I had an absolute ball, it was good fun. And now, with these S-Lab Genesis, I'm genuinely excited to get out there and run in them again, because I know Benita's probably going to have some hill sessions or incline sessions in that training block, and I'm excited to keep running in the S-Lab Genesis, they're great shoes, enjoyed them. Right, we've got a question — oh yeah, we had a few, we'll — this one here was kind of an interesting one, because most of our questions

[01:03:52] come around injuries and stuff, I don't really want to be answering necessarily — we'll always try to answer one, especially when it's general, I think we can give an opinion on general stuff, an opinion may not be right, may not be wrong, but we can give an opinion. Once it goes — I've had a few lately that have come where I've just said, go and see a doctor, hey, go and see a doctor, just like I've been doing, going and seeing a doctor myself. However, this one's a cool one from a young —

[01:04:22] so it's a good one for you, I'll forward it to you — no, you need to answer it, because this is about youth development. Yeah: 'Hi there, my husband Lucas is a runner and keen listener of your podcast but doesn't have Instagram, so he's asked me to message you. Lucas, we are from the Gold Coast, but he's just flown to Perth for the week with our daughter Neve, who is competing in the National School Sport Aquathlon Championships. Well done, Neve, she's racing this Wednesday. He was hoping you could give her some tips for the transition. She is 11 years old, so only just starting out.'

[01:04:54] 'She competes in full tris as of next year. Thank you, Jenny.' Thank you for the question, Jenny, thank you Lucas for listening, and well done Neve on cracking the National School Sports Aquathlon Championships. Now, I did get back to her before the national champs, but I wanted everyone else to have a listen, because I think the information, how I suppose — what the tips were around the racing, and what I was talking about, was I actually just concentrated on the transition. So she asked for some transition tips, for people who don't know what a transition is —

[01:05:26] when you're going from the swim to the bike, right, you obviously have to take your goggles off, get your helmet on, your shoes on. Then mainly, the one that's probably more critical in the elite racing, is coming off the bike into the run — you've got to slip your shoes on, they've generally got some stretchy laces in them for those who are runners and not triathletes. But I think the notion is — my answer to it was, transitions are all about being calm, being fast through being calm,

[01:05:57] and you've actually got to go out and practise a process of how that transition's going to go, so you know in your head exactly — I take my helmet off first, the second thing I do is put that helmet in the box, then I get my left front shoe, I put that on, I put the right one on, then I take my hat — and over time, continually practising that, but in a calm manner. Because what everyone seems to do, and this is like anything, and this is where I'm going with the answer, is we all rush in certain things. This could be training, this

[01:06:27] could be anything you're trying to implement in your daily life, but it comes back to, how can you put a process in place to make sure that happens as fast as possible, as efficiently as possible — it all comes back to doing it as calm as possible, the calmer you are, the quicker it goes. You see, like at Olympic distances, people's shoes are going everywhere and everyone's over-rushing. Was it in the women's race at the Olympics or another world meet recently, I remember seeing footage of one of the women running with their helmet on,

[01:07:00] she didn't take it off and started the run with the helmet on, which meant she had to keep running with the helmet on under some weird triathlon rules. So what got me thinking about this is, how does this work for running, how can you put it into running terms around this notion of being calm, slow is steady, steady is calm. It's like — and this is probably more for people who are doing a little bit more racing, it's the same notion of being calm when you're reacting to someone. If you're racing someone, or you're at parkrun and you're trying to catch up to the person in front, or someone's run away from you, it's the same notion of not

[01:07:32] overreacting and not overthinking, reacting too quickly when something happens in a running race. If someone ran off on you, or you were trying to do a surge, you don't necessarily have to immediately sprint to catch them, you actually calmly think about it, take your time, how am I going to approach this — I've got to catch up, I want to catch that person in front, but there's an actual running process to doing that. It could be thinking, OK, I'm going to run 10 steps on my left leg and

[01:08:05] 10 steps on my right leg with the best form possible, and that will slowly get me up there, but there's a process behind doing that. So we're — I always think with running, and this will come, we're going to have a discussion on marathon pacing, we're going to do a whole episode on pacing, but it's the same with pacing, and I know a lot of my mates have made this mistake in marathons past, it's so easy to go in with the idea of where you want your pacing to be, but then completely get into a race situation, completely get

[01:08:37] off track because you want to keep with the pace, the mate racing in front of you, you want to keep with them, oh it'll be easier if I just run with that group in front of me, but it never works out well. You've got to be calm under that pressure, making those decisions to go, nah, I'm going to stick to my guns, this is what I've got to do. I'm really looking forward to talking to Benita about just the concept of running with a pacer, 'cause I think there's a lot of people out there who might be prepping for Goldie Marathon with a time or whatever in mind, and they'll be like, well, I'll just go find the pacer that's going to run me to that time.

[01:09:10] That pacer's job isn't necessarily to run you to that time efficiently, I think the rules are they've just got to be there within 90 seconds of the time, right, so they might run you there, they might get there three minutes early and just wait, and then escort you across the line. Conversely, they might get you there late — but it's like that idea of should I run with the pacer, or should I peel off and run on my own. It's a great question for Gold Coast Marathon, and getting to understand a little bit on this road to Gold Coast, what their expectation of pacers is.

[01:09:42] We should ask how they work it out — actually, we should, we should get a pacer on, like one of the official pacers for the Gold Coast Marathon, or maybe someone that organises it, to find out how they evaluate their pacers for the race, 'cause I know the pacers for the more elite fields, there's not so much sticking to a goal pacer, 3 hours or whatever it is, but the women's pacer — let's not get ahead of ourselves. But there are steps, and if

[01:10:13] you can get there at a certain time, there's money — well, let's do that, let's get a pacer, that's really interesting. Just quickly, you mentioned about the idea of staying composed and not overreacting — a little bit of homework for everybody out there, Google men's triathlon Paris Olympics, what Courtney just spoke about, the idea of not reacting in the moment to a move that's made on you in a race. Most of us are never going to have this problem of actually racing to win something, right, but if you want to see it executed at the elite level, Alex Yee against Hayden Wilde at

[01:10:47] the Paris men's Olympic triathlon last year is a demonstration of exactly what you talked about — Google it, watch the race, YouTube, even the final finish, seeing what Alex Yee does and the way he executes his plan without panicking, it's a masterclass, yep, it's amazing to watch. Alright, so then on Wednesday, Liam, we'll see everyone again Wednesday after this, and it's all about how we set up this — your structure this coming Wednesday, Benita, the guest is gone.

[01:11:17] Benita Willis, the coach, arrives — correct, Benita Willis, the coach, in session this Wednesday, second episode of In The Beginning runs the Gold Coast Marathon series. It's going to be a lot of fun. If you know someone else who's running the Gold Coast Marathon this year, send it to them, get involved — whether you're aiming for a time or it's your first one, whatever it is, there's going to be something in this for everyone. We're going to be dropping those eps every single Wednesday. Yep, we'll see you then. See you.