EP 31 - STRAVA HEAT MAP HACKS & PACING CRIMES

[00:00] In the beginning, episode 31 — oh, good mate, I'm just eyeing off your Triple M vintage jacket over there, a little bit of retro merch if you're watching. We also do the video podcast on Spotify as well, so you can always see what we're talking about, but we'll try and keep it to audio. Triple M released these retro things a couple of years ago — I reckon this retro range is very popular. Got a thing coming up later in the episode too, which — that sounds like you dressed for the chat, mate.

[00:31] I want to start off today with — and I know people are already specifically tuning in for this because I've told some people I was going to bring it up — the Canberra Marathon last weekend. Yep, I saw it. Well done to everybody who ran it, congrats to anyone who PB'd. Great event, seems to be a really popular marathon. Courtney, if you were sent out to pace the 3:15 bus for the

[01:01] Canberra Marathon, or any marathon for that matter — and I'm not saying just casually pace it, I mean officially pacing, like you've got a balloon on or something, you've got a flag — what time should you come home in? I'd say 3:15. That'd be a good guess. Any wiggle room? Maybe 30 seconds here or there, but if you're comfortable you should be able to get pretty close. What do you think, in your mind, is the role of the pacer at

[01:31] a marathon, an official pacer at a marathon? I've never thought about it too much, but I'd make the assumption common sense says you run it as even as possible to get to the goal time. Exactly, and we've got technology these days that helps you do that. So you wouldn't take your own personal strategy — negative split, positive split, whatever — you're just trying to run even, even though we know it's better to try and negative split it. I would still run it even, because I think a pacer's job is

[02:04] to be comfortable running that pace so you're in control, so you can manage it and get there at the right time. Now this isn't a hypothetical — we're talking about the Canberra Marathon on the weekend. I don't know the person, no need to name them, but I've been told what happened and I've had a look and the data's there. The pacer for the 3:15 group came in at 3:04:18.

[02:39] That's a fair gap — over a 10-minute gap between the pace they'd flagged on their back sign that they'd run the group in, and the pace they actually got to the line in. Now let me add some context: the pacer said the pack they were running with was moving really well, everyone felt good, and the decision to go faster was made as a collective by the pack they were

[03:13] running with. Does that make the time okay? No, I want more context. So where's this information coming from — is it from the pacer, or from people in the pack? This is the pacer's own comments on what happened — that the group was moving well, it was a collective decision, they asked the guy next to them and he said,

[03:43] "yeah, go for it" — a collective decision to accelerate and go for it. The people at the back probably have a different story. I've been told some people popped, and not only didn't stay with the group but also missed their target. So my next question is: what obligation does a pacer have? Like we're saying, they should come in on that time — but do they have an obligation to the race? I think they have an obligation to the race,

[04:13] and an obligation to the runners in their pack. Let me pivot slightly, because I don't want to completely pile on the pacer — personally I think this pacer made a mistake, though I've never paced a race myself, so I don't actually know what that burden is like or what the expectations are. I know people who've paced races and I know how they approach it. But as a runner, you also can't put all your

[04:49] eggs in the pacer's basket. If you're one of the runners who popped because you tried to stay with a pacer who went out too hard, that's on you too — you've got to take some responsibility yourself. I'm with you, you can't throw all the blame at the pacer. Very few people go into a marathon these days without their own piece of technology on their wrist telling them how fast they should be running. So if you want to blame your pacer for going too quick or too slow, I think

[05:25] there's a bit of not wanting to accept responsibility for yourself there. That's true. And I bet at that point in the race they're running along thinking, let's just say for argument's sake, 30 K in, feeling pretty good — sure, let's push the pace. It's an easy thing to say yes to when you're feeling good, and probably easier when you're talking to the people running right beside you at the front too, though I don't know how big this pack was. All hypothetical, but I'm actually more interested in the obligation side — is it hard?

[05:56] There's a lot of marathons on at the moment — is it hard for them to get pacers? Is the quality of pacing starting to slip because of that? This is a case where he ran faster, so arguably it's worse if he'd gone slower — you'd then question, what's the bigger crime? I actually think going quicker is better than being a pacer who misses the pace on the slow side. Agreed.

[06:26] Yeah, that's the greater pacing crime — to go too slow rather than too fast. Correct, because I'd be furious if I was pacing with them and realised, oh shit, I'm not going to make it now. At least if you're on pace you can make the judgement call — hey, I'm going too fast, I'll back off. But if you put your trust in a pacer early and then miss the pace completely, there's no negative split that's going to bring that back. At least this pacer

[06:56] gave everybody a crack at hitting the target, whereas if he'd been going 10 minutes too slow, nobody would've had the chance to get there at all. We agree on responsibility to the race, I think. And look, I've talked off the cuff on a few things on this podcast and I'm about to do it again — I vaguely recall the London Marathon having something like, if you're not within 20 seconds of your goal time, of

[07:27] your set pace time, you don't get invited back to pace it again. That's the level of responsibility and expectation they place on their pacers — this is the time, you be within 20 seconds of it. Agreed, and if you don't, thanks, but we don't need you, we won't have you back. Which comes back to this notion that if you're pacing a set time, you want to be comfortable enough — I always thought of it like, if I can run three hours,

[07:57] I'll pace the 3:20 pack — I've got 20 minutes up my sleeve, I should be able to control this pretty well. Which comes back to my question: how hard is it, with so many marathons and so many runs so popular at the moment, for races to find pacers? Good question. We should ask the Gold Coast Marathon people how they go about recruiting them — we should get a pacer on the podcast and actually talk about the recruitment process.

[08:27] Out of curiosity, what pace, injuries aside, do you reckon you could comfortably go for a marathon? Yep, 100%, I'll get you there. Up to what pace? Say I was physically capable of going sub-three hours, breaking three hours? Well, the boys I run with are aiming for three hours — well, actually 2:50. So when we're doing early sessions, yeah, they'll

[08:58] give a time trial or whatever and I'm comfortable slotting into whatever pace they're trying — they might be holding 3:35s and I'll jump in and run along. So if you were handed the flag or the balloon, would you be comfortable with the responsibility and expectation at three hours? Yeah. What about at 2:50? Yep. 2:40 I'd want to train for and make sure. So sub-2:45 is where Courtney Atkinson starts to get a little cagey about pacing.

[09:29] Like I said, mate, I'm not saying I know anything about this until I actually run it, and we will run one. Wings for Life World Run — it's a charity race we run at 9pm at night, Red Bull puts it on. I remember one year I did it by myself — normally you join a group, you go to Sydney or wherever, but I did it along the Esplanade here, ran from home down along Mermaid Beach and just went up and down. I ended up doing 40-something K — 45, 46 — and I was

[10:04] tapping along at about 3:35s in the middle of the night and I was very comfortable. So that type of running gives me confidence I'm around those paces, but hey, never say never — I won't put myself out there saying I can do something until I've got proof in the pudding. And look, shout out to anybody who's ever paced a race out there. I think that half marathon I ran last year where I broke

[10:34] 90 — in my head I was going to have a pacer to run with, and when I got there in the morning there was no pacer. In some ways I think it was probably a good thing for me because it meant it was entirely on my own shoulders. But if I had my time again I'd still love to have someone there running with the flag — that's still pretty nice. It's a bit entitled, isn't it, turning up to a race expecting that. But it's an amazing service that any race

[11:04] offers, and for the people who give up their own race to do it right — you're basically crewing, like the people who crew for others in ultras and trail races. You're part of the support crew, you're just a fit person as well. Speaking of fit — hey, I've seen you this week, I'm looking at your great Triple M top over there, I've seen you popping up with Liesl and Lehman all over the place. Someone sent me a photo, this came from Adelaide.

[11:36] Explain what's going on. We ran a competition called Live With Liesl Jones, Lehman, Spider, where basically there were cardboard cutouts of the three of us, and the idea was that ten contestants took these cutouts and lived with them for two weeks. They had daily challenges — one day they had to get them as high in the air as they could, another day take them to the busiest street they could. It was this two-week-long challenge, and mate, I'm so glad it's over. I'm so sick of people messaging

[12:09] me asking "was there a cutout of you at my café?" This is meant to be a thing run on the Gold Coast, and a mate of mine who's a winemaker in the Barossa Valley sent me a video of it walking through his vineyard — what's it doing down there? What a promotion. I honestly thought there must have been 200 of these things — there's only ten, it's just the ten of them turning up multiple times. I'll tell you what, the Gold Coast Suns are sick of them too — they all had the same idea, take it to a Suns training session. I think we got some of them back

[12:40] with the Gold Coast Suns' signatures all over them, so they didn't do too badly. That's why my cutout's been everywhere this week. Let's get into a bit of comic running — Josh Pugh comic. This is before runners had social media, this is how we'd go about it — you're right. "Just been running, 6 kilometres, 32 minutes, 34 seconds."

[13:16] "Max heart rate 162, average heart rate 140. Turned up at a random neighbour's house. Incline nought point one percent, first two kilometres the fastest, slowed down for the middle bit, then picked up again for the last few." Sorry, why are you telling me this? Just letting everybody know — going around everybody I know, like everyone, friends, people I used to go to school with, ex-work colleagues, just getting round and

[13:46] letting everyone know. Yeah, mate, say this bit too — it's marked on a map, the route he did, he wanted to have a look at it. That's my favourite part of that. Do you like what I've done this morning? Would you say you love it? I got sent that by so many people — I reckon everybody listening's probably been sent that link at some point, they're starting to get our humour. But it's

[14:17] the other sign running's hit the mainstream, because now there are comedians doing parodies of that stuff. It's good, it's bang on too. How would you have done it before? You wouldn't have immediately told everyone, wouldn't tell anybody about it — can't put up your Strava map. No, you'd have a Facebook group. I'm guilty of that, I love a good old Strava map up on socials. Running is all just continuing to run, and Track and Field is on fire

[14:49] right now, having a moment — more than a moment, it's on fire. Australian track and field's having a moment. There's a few things I want to touch on — Leah O'Brien breaks a 15-year-old Raelene Boyle record. Leah O'Brien, this West Australian girl. What is with our sprinters at the moment? We'll get on to the next thing, but let's concentrate on the females first, because they're probably not getting quite the attention the fellas are. It's

[15:20] happening across the board. What do you think it is? Let's think back — Gout Gout, 17, Leah O'Brien, this Western Australian sprinter, same age, 17 years old. So let's go back 17 years — that takes us to 2008. What Olympic Games was that? Beijing. And maybe you'd have to jump forward another Olympic Games or two before you'd realise what was going on. I don't

[15:52] know exactly what was going on in Australia in 2008 that means the genetics of the country's taken a leap forward — I'm just going off the cuff here, but we have different generations coming through in different sports at different times. The Matildas have just gone through their golden generation, where the talent pool was of a level that it came together on the national scale and lifted women's football to the levels we now see. And I think we've, for whatever reason, got this current pool of

[16:27] Aussie sprinting talent, these young standout athletes as part of it. I don't know what's caused it, but I'm so excited for it because it's real depth — short of Cathy Freeman, we've never really had this before. This is a first from an international talent standard perspective. They're not quite there yet, they've still got to prove it, but in terms of beating potential,

[16:59] these young crews are beating the Australian all-time records. That's the difference now, that's never happened before. That's a shift, that's a change. We'll get to Gout and Lachie Kennedy in a second, but for Leah O'Brien — who's the girl, I've forgotten her name, she was at the Olympics just gone in Paris, the young sprinter with the curly hair whose name eludes me — I'm going to do a quick Google.

[17:30] I think it's got to do with — you're on the right track with the Olympics — I think at some stage young athletes have to be inspired. And when I say inspired, at what point do they decide? Like we heard Gout talk a bit about it with his coach — he was doing well at school, doing basketball, and the coach sat him down and said, you can be an Olympic champion, I can see it in you. And then there's the belief from that point on. But broader than that, whatever grass-roots athletics has done in the past, let's say six to

[18:02] ten years, is what's actually producing these athletes now — they've come through a developmental pathway to this standard at a young age. I'm not across it enough to know whether it's Athletics Australia, whether it's private coaching, what it is. But something is going right in that sport, and not just in sprinting — it's also in middle distance, with the depth of our middle-distance runners at the moment being the same. What can I compare it to? I went through a period in

[18:33] triathlon where I was part of a generational kind of dominance, guys older than me — I was probably at the back end of it — where we went through this stretch of being the best triathletes in the world, with real depth. We're seeing that same type of thing in running now, and that's exciting, because running is something every kid can do. So if we build that inspiration now through these young kids, it's going to continue for a while. Can you talk a bit

[19:04] more about it from a triathlon perspective? Because you came in on the back of guys like Brad Beven and Chris McCormack dominating as Australian athletes — you're always going to get the one-offs, the outliers who pop up in a sport because their parents were great at it, genetics at play, whatever. But I grew up in a time where you've got to have something to look forward to. So what is it, as a 10-year-

[19:34] old or a 12-year-old, that makes a kid go, "I want to be that"? It's got to be something pretty shiny, pretty exciting — whether it's a young female seeing this record broken, or someone watching Gout and going, "I want to be him." That's what drives someone to go through the process. For me it was you mentioning Brad and Greg Welch and those guys — I wanted to emulate them, and that's what drove me. And there was a livelihood in doing that as

[20:06] well, so it was a double whammy. Does it make it easier for coaches to show young athletes, "look, it's possible, you can be it"? A coach might not become any more educated or develop new tools, but just having that thing to point to — does that make life easier for them? Of course it does. It's also just a numbers game — if you're attracting more younger kids to

[20:37] come in and try something because they've got visibility of where they can go in the future, it's like anything — if you haven't got a benchmark and can't see where you're going to go, it's a lot harder to make that pathway yourself. If you've got this great line of talent and knowledge — and the knowledge is a huge one, how to train — you could probably argue that group of distance runners down in Melbourne who were firing on all cylinders. You could argue there was

[21:08] Nic Bideau, and he was coaching a range of them, and then Mottram, Collis Birmingham — these are the guys who I went to the Games with who are now coaching these athletes. There's been a transfer of knowledge. Gotcha. And with that transfer of knowledge, plus the ability to bring in talent, that's where the magic happens. Just quickly going back to the women's sprinters at the moment — Leah O'Brien breaks that junior record held by Raelene Boyle. Torrie Lewis was the young sprinter

[21:38] I was thinking about — she's only 20 years of age, still very much on the up. And a big shout out to Bree Rizzo, as she was, now Bree Masters, who at 29 is the veteran amongst this female sprinting group at the moment and performing outstandingly. I love what Bree's doing for women's sprinting. The future is bright on the women's side too, despite the spotlight being very much on the young Aussie male sprinters right now. Yeah. So on the male side, there's a lot going on.

[22:09] Let's touch on it quickly — do you agree, Lachie Kennedy blitzed it, came out again ran great, wasn't even DQ'd this time in the 200 metre final? Yeah, the most recent one's a bit different, but even going back to that around-100-metres one — what can he do, and he's handling it very well, by the way. The Lachie Kennedy–Gout Gout situation is an example, playing

[22:45] out in real time, of the thing you and I have talked about a lot — athletes and noisemakers. Gout Gout is a noisy athlete, Lachie Kennedy by comparison is not a noisy athlete. I'm not saying that as a criticism of either of them, I'm just saying that's the reality of public perception right now. Gout Gout is making huge noise — but here's the thing, Gout's not the one making the noise. Yeah, again, that's the difference, right?

[23:15] Because it's so organic — even if you just sat on YouTube, like I did the day after that 200 run, the last 200 run — it's not his own channel, it's US publications, US YouTube channels, everyone else pushing those videos. It's not being driven by him. And that's why it's uncontrollable and so exciting — he just runs, puts on a bit of a show, and the show's getting bigger, but it's not him and his team pushing it out there.

[23:48] So it's interesting — yes it's noisy, but it's an uncontrollable noise that they're not controlling. It's wildfire in a sense, spreading uncontrollably without any intent from Gout and his team. But for whatever reason — and this is the magic potion that any athlete, any singer, any act trying to make a name for themselves would pay anything to bottle and find — is that magic

[24:22] he's got. He's got the it-factor. So what do you reckon with Lachie then? Can I ask you this — I because this is a conversation I've had with a few people, not about Lachie specifically, because I think he's clearly elite in his own right — but if you're one of these young sprinters coming through in that same age bracket as Lachie and Gout right now, are you dissuaded? Is there a risk of becoming disenchanted?

[24:53] Is there a level of frustration, if your own ambitions are to become an Olympic gold medallist or simply make an Olympic team? If it was me personally — yeah, that's my personality, I would be. But what I found interesting was Lachlan Kennedy — I think with the younger age groups

[25:25] there's a real, you know, friendship or mateship there, and I think it's real. I'm not sure, but there's this whole idea of embracing each other — I don't think that's wrong, but I think there needs to be a bit of fight in there too. Everyone can get along, but there's got to be a hard competitiveness there as well, otherwise to a degree you're just giving in, you're rolling over. So either it's not real, or I'd want to see

[26:00] him light a fire under it — like, they're close, right? I want to see the fire lit. Quickly, going back to Lachie versus Gout — because he's going to be, I shouldn't say enemy, what's the word, combatant. If there was more animosity between the two, suddenly Lachlan Kennedy becomes a bigger story because he becomes the nemesis, the yin to the yang.

[26:32] Yes — at the moment he's more of a sidekick. I like this, what's a superhero pairing we can think of — he needs to be Lex Luthor to Superman, the Joker to Batman. At the moment, they're Batman and Robin. This is real — when I was asking about becoming disenfranchised or disheartened, I was thinking more about the athletes who are a second or two behind

[27:02] Lachie and Gout. Let's shelve that, though — let's go to this, I love this as a conversation. Would it actually be beneficial for either of them to take on a more combative attitude towards the other? Well — at the moment you could argue Gout's Superman and, whatever the case is, they're Batman and Robin, because it's obvious

[27:32] he's in the box seat. I'm trying to think who Batman's Joker would be — if there was a fire lit between them, he becomes part of the conversation driving it. Danny Green, Anthony Mundine — yes, let's go there, let's use that as our analogy. Because what you had with Danny Green and Anthony Mundine were two world-class boxers whose rivalry with one another sparked

[28:06] probably the greatest Australian rivalry of recent, modern times. And they both benefited from it, both played their role, and both were probably better boxers for it. I'm sure it propelled them to get the most out of themselves. Does the Australian public want to see Gout Gout and Lachie Kennedy become rivals, or do they want them to remain

[28:37] amicable teammates competing in the same sport? Depends what part of Australia you ask, I reckon — good question. I'm thinking about it from Lachlan Kennedy's point of view, because that's why I brought it up. But I see it more and more often in younger sport these days, where there seem to be fewer competitors and more mates and friends.

[29:09] You don't look at the opposition as an enemy so much anymore. Maybe on the inside there are things we're not seeing, but I know from when I raced — you don't have to be an absolute prick to people, but there are competitors, you don't have to be friends, and sometimes you share the podium. I've seen especially older athletes where I'd be racing and they'd nearly come to blows. Really? Yeah.

[29:40] Did you ever throw one? Never. There was definitely — because we had so many of the best in the world — times where people disliked each other for various internal reasons. But did you ever throw a punch? Never. Did anyone ever throw one at you? No. I'd consider myself, if I had that competitiveness, I'd keep it

[30:10] inside. I don't think I was. But did anyone ever go after you or blow up at you? No, not really — that was probably prior to my time. We mentioned Brad Beven's era, really, and that was probably when there was more money heavily involved in the sport, when you were fighting for your living. But there was also good money to be won on a weekend.

[30:40] So people wanted to win, and there was hard competition. Golf's an interesting comparison — on the golfing scene right now, there are golfers who are mighty tight, Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods, you know. And then there are others — an example being Rory McIlroy, who just won, finally got the Masters, completing his career Grand Slam and joining an

[31:11] exclusive club — I think only five, he becomes the 6th golfer to ever win the career Grand Slam of all the majors. Now he and his countryman, fellow Irishman Shane Lowry, are as thick as thieves, genuine good mates — Rory's partnered with him in team events before, they play the Ryder Cup together, and Shane was one of the first there to congratulate him after the Masters win. But then when he played that final group alongside the American, Bryson DeChambeau,

[31:44] apparently they didn't say a word to each other all day, and from what I could see and read and heard, that wasn't Bryson's choosing — that was Rory's. Rory created that dynamic in that final pairing, Rory drove it — you're not my friend, there's nothing polite going on here. Also, Bryson's one of the LIV golfers, and Rory's famously anti-LIV. I'm getting a bit niche in golf stuff here, but the point is Rory viewed his competitor there not as someone to have a nice round of golf with, but as someone he needed to

[32:16] beat — and he was going to create that environment on their field of battle, the golf course. I wonder if Gout and Lachie achieve greater things if they start to create that same environment on their field of battle, the running track, rather than the "we're all in this together, High School Musical" vibe. I believe so — that's my opinion, even one step further, I reckon. I wonder in league sport too whether

[32:49] sports psychologists have changed anything — there's this notion, and I can recall it, that sports psychologists were part of a strategy, helping you understand how to take a loss, how you manifest towards the next race, how you get back on top of it, how you approach a race mentally, how you train your brain.

[33:20] So if a whole industry has gone one way — and I'm really generalising here — if our society's kind of become more "lovey-dovey, everyone get together, nice," has that affected the nature of sports psychologists, which is a bit of a long bow, but is that why we're seeing less competitiveness between athletes? I've got to stop, because I could do a whole hour on this

[33:51] — now my mind wants to talk about Michael Jordan, who famously was ruthless to the point he'd make up comments and feuds his opponents supposedly said, fuelling his internal fire with things he'd invented in his own head that never actually happened, because that's how he got the best out of himself. I was in an era where I knew athletes who went through different phases — Chris McCormack went through a

[34:21] lot of different phases in triathlon, and at times was genuinely driven by wanting to just destroy other athletes — destroy them, to the point of not even being able to be in the same room together at times. And then, you know, a friend's like — but that's the nature of it, you want to win, you want to win. And just quickly, I'm sorry, this is what happens in me as a

[34:52] sports nuffy when we get onto something like this, all these thoughts firing in my brain, all these examples — last one I want to throw out on the Lachie Kennedy/Gout Gout example: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are friends. Were they always friends? I don't know, from the beginning, or in the early days — but you couldn't say their friendship hindered either of them going on to achieve their greatest

[35:22] potential, and there was a respect there. I don't follow tennis closely enough, but I'd love to know what that friendship and relationship was like in the early days — I don't think it would've been the same. Once they reached that upper stratosphere I think it just got — I mean, they played so long, too, and given who they are — but I wonder in the earlier days whether it was as amicable, whether there was a friendship, or whether that

[35:54] grew over time. That would be a good question. Oh, this is good, damn it — I'll move you on, we could do a whole podcast on sporting rivalries and whether they made athletes better. Picking up on it, just to put a bow on it — the moment we see Lachie Kennedy and Gout Gout push each other in the chest after a finish line, remember this podcast. Yeah, 'cause they both broke — anyway, let's tell people about it. Bit of Chantelle.

[36:27] Circling back on last week — Courtney's brought a little box onto the table here, we were looking at the episode from last week and a few people put comments in about Oakleys and old sunglasses. For those who watch on Spotify, we always video these as well. I've literally just handed Liam — what have we got here, mate? This is a box of random Oakleys I've kept from my career — they get the coloured ones opened up, maybe that purple one. Now you'll see what I was talking about around customising.

[37:01] Oh, this is a straight-up pair — like speed dealers. I was going to say, you didn't race in these, did you? No, I reckon these were an Olympic one-off, a special pair, with all the flags, all the country flags, for that Games. They're cool — you put them on and I reckon you could go sell a bag on the corner. You'd get arrested quick these days, I reckon. So you wouldn't have raced in these, though.

[37:31] No, no, no. This one's a racing pair — let's have a look. All I'm finding is straight black at the moment. I'll pop these on so I get a sense of what it actually — the big Courtney Atkinson in a race look. These are no good either, mate. Oh — here we go, no, that's — we're trying to find a pair with some flair. There you go, oh, bright — I reckon these would've been a pair like bright yellow, you look like you've stolen these off the head of Andrew Symonds from a

[38:01] one-day international World Cup. I reckon these are probably Canary yellow. Oh, there we go, look at that — green and gold. So do you reckon this was Olympic team? Yeah, for sure, probably raced in those at one of the Games, and different countries would've had their own colours built into them. So what do you reckon of the green and gold like that? That's proud, racing for our country — but it's not, it's not a great colour palette.

[38:32] It's not a great colour, I'm not being unpatriotic, but it's not a great colour. If I gave you those sunnies, you probably wouldn't wear them again — let's be honest, it's a bad colour palette compared to the red, white and blue of America or France or the UK — great colour palettes to race in. But the green and gold is still a sharp look, especially in these

[39:02] sunnies. Anyway, there you go, little box — a few people were asking about what I was talking about last week. I think that's probably the Lance Armstrong era — hold them up to the camera, that's like what do they call them, the Blades or something. That is Lance Armstrong. I just stay there like that, I can't see myself but I feel fast — I feel like if I wore these sub-three out here, we

[39:34] — oh, you can't see them, I can't see myself. Courtney, you're making fun of me. I'm not making fun of you, I'm just — Courtney's taking a photo of me wearing glasses now, this is riveting audio content. Yeah, just hang on — there you go. Oh no, they're too small for my head. Warning to anybody with a fat head out there, you can't wear the Blades. So if you're still listening after that — some more stuff from last week. Got a message in from Pat

[40:04] Dillon: "Enjoying the podcast lads, think Ben's question on his race time needs a poll." So this was around the London Landmarks Marathon being short — reckon we're contradicting ourselves if we tell people to take the official race time when it's over your GPS, but not take the time when it's under your GPS. So if your GPS is long, is that right, surely race time is official

[40:37] regardless? Yeah, well, it is, and that's what I agree — so we did a poll and most people, 65%, agree with that. I'm a bit worried about the 3% who said it depends on the course — sounds like they'll take whichever time is faster. If you run a marathon, you take the official race time, you put your faith in the people running the thing. 65% of those who chimed in — a reasonable data set — said that if

[41:12] we run it, that's the race time, and that's your race time regardless. Doesn't matter, that's the race. Fair enough. Ryan Tags — another message sent into the podcast: "G'day fellas, a little late, but wanted to chime in. Just listened to episode 20 where Courtney, you talk about running in Japan — coincidentally I've just found myself in the Kyoto area tomorrow. Courtney, you were saying how great the heat maps are on Strava, and I, like Liam, don't pay so I don't have premium Strava. So I had a stalk of your account to figure out where to run, and

[41:44] while having a stalk, I found the web app has free heat maps. Came for the Kyoto River tomorrow, cheers." This is huge — this is on your laptop version? Yeah, you can look at the heat maps I've been talking about the whole time, for free. I like this, it's a loophole, it's a hack. So if you don't pay for Strava, like me and Ryan here, and you're on holidays and want to know where to run, where people run — jump on the web version of Strava and you should be able to access the

[42:16] heat maps. This is huge, thanks Ryan — and if you work for Strava and you close this loophole after listening to this, that's not what we're about here. What's up with running, Liam? So, for people following along with the marathon episodes — I'm in the hands of Benita, currently managing a slight soleus strain, which is not great given I've only been in the program with Benita for a week. Nice.

[42:46] You don't know what a soleus is — so your calf muscle is made up of two muscles: the big one, the gastrocnemius, at the back, the big chunky thing that looks muscular when you flex it, and the soleus, which is the smaller one that runs behind it closer to the bone. I was just going to say "the calf," but thank you — well, this is how many calf lessons I've had, I can now tell you what the calf is made up of, soleus is the little one, gastroc is the big one. I've had history with soleus issues because I'm a heavy runner.

[43:16] In fact so much so that the physio's now describing me — I went to a Gold Coast physio and made a booking, and my physio shared the same name story with another guy, Mark, who I'd seen previously. "Hey, Liam's made an appointment." Mark said, "what's the problem?" "Don't know, it's probably a calf." Mark said, "I agree." I'm now known as a heavy runner at the physio. Fair enough. So I jumped into the training session with Benita and felt fine — aerobically felt fine. Went for the long run session,

[43:48] which was meant to be a 25K to 28K set, ended up pulling the pin at 22. Felt the calf get a bit tight around 7 or 8K in, pushed on and tried to accelerate the pace but found myself not wanting to toe-strike like I normally would, instead dropping back to heel-striking because the calf didn't feel great. I was meant to accelerate quicker than marathon pace and I just thought, why would I do

[44:19] this, it feels like it's going to tear, I feel like I'm going to end up doing something bad, pull something badly, or get a strain. Lesson for me was it's better to stop than push on — why continue to push on, when you're going to have to do that throughout the whole marathon anyway? Yeah. So I'm glad, because previously I probably would've tried to push through it and ended up tearing it. So I've pulled it back, I'm currently doing a bit

[44:49] of rehab work to get it right so I can pick the marathon plan back up with Benita from there. But yeah, it was frustrating. And I think the other lesson, talking to Benita, was that I probably wasn't recovered enough from kunanyi — the one week off and then going straight into a marathon program wasn't enough time for the legs to recover from kunanyi. You can blame me for that one. No, no, no, no blame — but that's where I'm at. The other lesson, more of a shoe lesson, which some people will appreciate.

[45:22] I'm lucky enough, thanks to you and some other people, to have plenty of shoes in the wardrobe. But what I didn't have in the shoe quiver were these Adidas Boston 12s, which is what I ran a lot in last year — I really liked training in them, and it's what I ran my half marathon PB in last year. That comforts you there. I love training in them because it's not a full carbon plate.

[45:53] They've got carbon rods so you still get that energy return, there's a nice bit of foam in them, so you get more than I do from, say, the ASICS Novablast I've run in previously, but it's not as taxing as running in something with a full carbon plate — it's a nice in-between. I had a pair of those that had died, and I was sitting there on my laptop ready to buy a new pair, and my wife Alana said, "what are you doing?" I said, "I'm just going to buy a pair, my Adidas are dead, I need a new pair." And she goes, "you're going to buy more shoes?"

[46:23] And I said yeah, and — you know how it goes. And that's what she said, "how many shoes do you need?" And what I should have done, and this is a tip to every runner about to buy new shoes — you buy those shoes. What I should have said to her was, "yeah, I've got a lot of shoes in there, but I don't have the shoes I need." I feel like it's the same for people with bikes or golf clubs, that's the rationale they give themselves. Well, I should've said to my wife, "no, but I don't have the shoes I need" — instead I didn't buy them, and I ended up doing that longer

[46:54] run in another pair of shoes with a full plate that didn't have enough support, and I didn't like them, my calves felt tight and I didn't enjoy running in them. Instead, I let the guilt get the better of me. Have you spent the dollars now? I have — since gone and purchased the new pair of Adidas Boston 12s, they're ready to go, the quiver has expanded, and I'll be back on deck next week. It's always "how many shoes have I got, plus one" — it always works, mate.

[47:24] That's the bike rule as well — I've just brought it over to running. What about you, can you give me an update on the injury — how long's it been since you've been for a run? About three-and-a-half, getting up to four weeks now, I've been walking around on it. Feels like we're asking about your sobriety — how many days? Yeah, yeah, we're getting there. Look, I'm not going to look at it each way here — it's actually been nice to switch off a bit. It's the longest I haven't run since I was 15 or 16 years old.

[47:58] So on one hand it's a nice change, not having to think about running so much, but I'm itching to get back into it at the same time. I'll probably start getting on a bike this week — I've got the green light to start doing some light bike spinning, maybe even get into some light weights, not heavy, just start. And then I realised I'm away on the road with Subaru for another week and a half, and the only thing I'll probably be able to do on that trip

[48:29] is run. So I'm kind of half-open to it — bring the bike and I can spin it around, but that's where I'm at. Hey, one thing you didn't mention — you told me this story the other night when we were watching soccer. Didn't tell you this story? Yeah, this was a cracker of a story — I was at Pizzey Park, home of the Gold Coast Run Co, my daughter's also part of the Bilinga Bulldogs and she started playing soccer out there, so we went to watch the under-23s

[49:02] and the open men's team who were playing a game that night. The game started, I think the under-23s men kicked off at about 6:30 — by that point it's basically too dark to be doing anything on the other pitches, and the lights are on for the main oval. What I noticed was two blokes doing a run — but once it got dark and we were

[49:32] set up in the clubhouse — there's a big crowd there to watch this under-23s game, there's a clubhouse, a mini grandstand, then a strip of grass before the sideline, maybe a two-metre-wide stretch between the fence of the pitch and the grandstand where everybody's standing around mingling and having beers. There's about a two-metre-wide path through there. Most local soccer clubs — these two blokes insisted, and they

[50:07] were running laps, but they insisted on running along that path while the game was going on. So not only were they interrupting the view, but I was sitting there thinking, surely this is inconvenient for you as runners too, to be continuously interrupting — must've been awkward. And that's why I asked you the question by text: should runners have to adapt to their environment, or is it the

[50:40] other way around, should the environment adapt to the runner? If you're a regular runner of a certain loop — if they were doing this every Friday, that was my first question. Is there a game or training on every week there, and the game's impeding on them, versus is this a one-off? There's so many questions — the first question I had was, did they have shirts on or not? One of them had his shirt on. The other one had it off — one shirt off. Jeez, I

[51:11] think about it because obviously we've got the path here, and I think about the Tan in Melbourne, all these regular running spots. But if there's something else going on because it's not a dedicated running track — my instinct is, as the runner, you find somewhere else to run. In this case, I'm 100% — yes, you can run there when there's no games, of course, but when the club's in operation, even if it's just training, and you're literally running between the grandstand and a

[51:43] proper game going on — yeah, I don't know what these fellas were thinking. You could run around the back of the clubhouse or something, you wouldn't see anything, this was really weird. I'd be interested — what do you reckon, what would you do if you were in this situation? Here's the question: send us a message if you run in an inconvenient spot, if you regularly interrupt something with your running path

[52:13] and refuse to change — I'm going to judge you, but I'm curious to know. Imagine, for a comparison, if Southport markets are on, or Surfers Paradise markets — sorry, I wouldn't run through there, I don't think you could run through there, and even if you tried it'd be a bit weird. But if you were running and the Surfers Paradise markets were on the Esplanade, you'd dip out onto the road for two seconds, then pop back up onto the path. Cool, and Coolangatta markets down the south end, same thing — if the Coolangatta

[52:43] markets are on, and they're not as crowded, I would still move around them and run around. They need to watch Queensland Government's transport safety videos, they need to be watching running etiquette. Hey, on the topic of you having a bit of a niggle on the calf — Michael Richardson, so Richo, he's from North Queensland, NQ, he's on Instagram a fair bit and writes in — he's got

[53:14] an account full of running memes, quite talented at knocking them out. He said, mate, you've got this, Liam, trust your coach, trust the process, and he reckons you'll start feeling like a machine around week six to eight. Now that got me thinking, because I used to always say when we got back into the run group after having a bit of time off, week three was my week.

[53:48] Like the first three weeks getting back were always tough, and then around week three something would click. And then three months, or nine weeks, in, you'd feel rock solid. That made me think of that — thank you, Richard. We'll leave it there. I've got a bit of audio — I don't have a local race this week, no local race shout-out, but have a listen to this and we'll have a chat after.

[54:20] "Okay, so Renee and I have decided you need a new segment — it's Race Reports, and we're going to give you our very first one off the back of the Nike Women's Half Marathon, or Nike After Dark Tour Half Marathon. I'm just walking home from it, so this is coming live — absolutely chef's kiss, no notes. That was the coolest running event I've ever been a part of — everything from the pickup of bibs, the whole event experience, the medals, they're necklaces, they're beautiful."

[54:53] "The finish line was incredible, and straight into an incredible DJ set for a couple of hours off the back of the event. The course itself is super urban, so you're never going to hit a massive PB, although Renee did, huge PB, good girl. But there were just all these touchpoints everywhere that made it feel — honestly, Nike is cool again. If you want to hit females aged, I don't know, 18 to 30 — there were 7½ thousand women running, and it was the most incredible vibe."

[55:24] "So chef's kiss, no notes, Nike After Dark Tour race report — everyone should do it." Wow, okay, so that was Jen Davis and Renee from Red Bull, out there in Sydney, huge event. I'd love it if people want to send in their race reports after events, right here, I think we can be the home of race reports. So yep, if you go and run a race and want to send us a nice contained race report like Jen just did — keep it short, keep it sharp, keep it to the highlights, and we might look to include as many of

[55:56] those as we can. Nike, well done — Nike's cool again, I like that tagline too, because they've been struggling. But that necklace, I was just trying to look it up, I saw it, it's pretty cool. And this was, was it the Osaka Women's Marathon that used to do this — a Tiffany necklace instead of a medal? We've talked a lot about race souvenirs, mementos instead of a medal — I love the idea of a necklace. I saw a picture of it, and this is

[56:28] this event that happened in Sydney, something of an extension of the event I went to at the Broadwater Parklands — we talked about that at the time. I don't want to say it's the future of recreational running, but it's going to be a fixture, because these night-time festival-type events are what people want to do. If we haven't, I'll try and post some of the pictures, but it looked amazing — the premium, 7½ thousand females.

[57:00] That's a great turnout, and a great international DJ at the end of it — I don't know the name, but it's the same thing that's made LIV Golf successful in Adelaide too — you're taking a sport that has its die-hard fans, but making it accessible to the average person by making it cool. Yeah, and night-time — the road was shut down. When I first heard about the event I was thinking it'd be out at Sydney Olympic Park, they'd shut down the

[57:31] park and do a night-time half marathon around there — but actually, I think Jen said they went out on light rail or a bus or train, it started point-to-point and they finished back around Darling Harbour, I believe. I was going to ask where they ran it — I haven't done my research on this one. Oh, here you go — the After Dark Tour is officially rolling, next up, let me have a look at the Nike route — they're going to Shanghai next. So great, we're — they're nice.

[58:01] We want more of these events where it's not just a run, it's a proper festival, I suppose. Well done. Georgia Smith was the DJ for this one, do you know her? Nope. I've been told on good authority she books headline international acts. Okay, alright — Samuel Jackson wrote in, hey, I like this one, he's a listener, Samuel Jackson.

[58:34] We've been going a long time today, haven't we? "Hey boys, love the pod, you boys do. Question — coming into the colder and shorter days" — yes, this is happening, daylight savings has finished — "can you guys recommend, or maybe tell us up to five headlights or lights for running? Thanks." Great question, I have no idea, so I've passed this off to our good friend Ando down at Wild Earth. And if you need to go see

[59:04] someone about any of this stuff, he's the guy — he's got all the equipment, he trials it, he knows what he's talking about. So he said, "brother, I recommend the LED Lenser MH10 — it's a beast, and it's rechargeable." I had the old version, the Neo — I had this one too, I can vouch for it, nice and comfortable. That's his recommendation, and I've had the older version, so I can say it's a great

[59:35] headlamp. Not going to give you five different variations of it, but if you're looking for something to wear on the road, the Black Diamond will do the job — that's another one I've got, which is really super lightweight. If you're in the trails it can make your eyes go a bit funny, I think it's around 300 lumens, not quite bright enough to see everything so you feel like you're running a bit blind the whole time anyway. If you're on the road, use that. But he also said if you're running on the road, honestly —