EP 35 - RUNNING PLAYLISTS, SURFING SHOWDOWNS & WREXHAM'S AUSSIE INVASION

[00:00] Welcome to In the Beginning, episode 35 — the setup wasn't as clean as I'd like it to have been today. How are you, mate? I'm going to have one too. It's been a long day, it's been a long day in the build-up to this. We've got running to talk about — we've got the top running songs identified, and a bit of a Strava deep dive's been done. We'll get to those in a sec, but first I think we've been doing a pretty good job lately of dipping our toe into other sports we're not experts in, especially me — you're an Olympian, so you're at least qualified to talk about some of

[00:30] this stuff. As you can tell by my hat, I was at the Gold Coast Pro — well, whatever it's officially called these days. We both were, actually — I know that, Liam, because I was there with you. So thank you. We were hanging out down there in those awesome Red Bull seats on the point — the setup they had, which were the best seats on the point, better than the VIP area. So much so that we ended up awkwardly stuck in the back of shot on the broadcast for every surfer, coach and

[01:02] team that came into the area — because it wasn't meant to be the place for surfers, coaches and teams to hang out. The Red Bull crew told me in the end that it was actually set up as an activation for spectators — best seats in the house, pull someone out of the crowd and go, 'hey, instead of sitting on the rocks, come up here, have a drink, have a bit of food on us.' But what it turned into, because of the way they were surfing the point, was that the surfers were down further than they normally would

[01:32] be — so from the actual athlete and coaches' area, they couldn't see the surf properly. Hence we ended up in the coach's box. So, for people out there who don't quite understand what we're saying — imagine a tennis tournament where the camera cuts to the coach's box and you often see Nick Kyrgios and the likes yelling up at it. What we were sitting in was the surfing equivalent of that. And as each heat finished, the coaches and team of each surfer would walk

[02:02] out, and the next heat's coaches and team would walk in. It probably looked like you and I were, I don't know, tagging along with every team that walked through — for a while we were basically part of the Brazilian team, girlfriends and boyfriends included, with you and I there the whole time. Anyway, we were hanging out there, it was awesome, and the VIP section above the pavilion was good fun too. What I wanted to get to though — the event itself was moved there because the ex-tropical cyclone had wiped away the bank at Snapper, and it

[02:34] wasn't going to hold up to the WSL's needs for the surfing comp. That event at Burleigh was awesome — that was so good, that was incredible. It was the perfect spot to have the actual event, but I know you're going to say it should go where the surf is, which brings me to my next question: where should it be next year? Let me phrase it this way — is it athlete over audience, or audience over athlete? Because for the spectators, Burleigh's better, I

[03:05] guess. The surfers are going to say go back to Snapper 100%. It's better surf for the event and for spectators. And the way it turned out, even with pretty ordinary weather over the weekend, it was still good — imagine if they'd had a bluebird four or five days as well. That's amazing, I mean, 10,000 people down there on the final day. And Burleigh's only going to get busier — by next year the tram, the G:link, whatever you want to call it, will probably run down to Burleigh, so that place is going to be, you know, packed out. So next year, even if the bank is ready to go back at

[03:39] Snapper, you'd still hold the event at Burleigh because of the event site and atmosphere it creates? Depends what hat I've got on, mate. Right now you've got your In the Beginning podcast hat on — Burleigh. Because I spoke to some people from the WSL, spoke to some people from Experience Gold Coast, and it'll go back to Snapper next year. But the challenge they face is how to recreate — I think it's kind of a win-win, because they get to go back to the better wave, which will be

[04:09] Snapper. But now they've seen what an event site should look like on the Gold Coast, so they've got the challenge of recreating that Burleigh Heads event site at Snapper. Next question — 2032 Olympics, where should the surfing be held? Snapper. There you go, flipped straight for the Olympic Games — I'd want to see it in the best surf. This is so interesting, because my head's the other way. I think the WSL should be back

[04:41] at Snapper next year, but for the Olympics it should be at Burleigh. Now you say what? I'm completely the opposite — for the Olympics I want the best surf, the best chance, it's 100% about the competition. OK, and for the WSL, yes, it's also about the competition for the surfers, and here we are talking like we know what surfers think. But the surf is considered better at Snapper, 100%, on its day, it's the better wave. However, when you look year on year at the fact it created that style of event — there are multiple reasons why you bring

[05:12] an international event to a location. What Burleigh proved on the weekend, and over the last few weekends, is that it's by far the better location to bring people in. Now here's where I'd argue a bit around the type of people who get down there — the heavy surf crew who love watching surfing are going to go no matter what. You could put it down at Kingscliff and they'll still rock up, put it in Byron and they'll still rock up, put it at bloody Seventeen Seventy with no surf and they'll still rock up.

[05:42] But what you did by moving it to Burleigh, I think, was bring in a new crowd — locals especially. I think you got a lot more locals down there who normally wouldn't go to Snapper, including myself. Here's why I say that — Red Bull's obviously heavily involved in WSL, you've got the individual surfers we sponsor and everything that goes with the athletes, and that's been going on for as long as I've been around the business. Yeah, and I've never been to Snapper to watch. I've never been, for the simple reason —

[06:13] well, it's just not a convenient spot — it's further away from me. Burleigh's easier, and it's only going to get easier, which is why, as a local, I don't really want Burleigh any busier either. But when we're bringing in an international event, that's the place. At an Olympic level though, as an Olympian, you want whatever the arena is — the wave, the track, the road — set up so the athletes have got the

[06:44] best chance to compete. And I also know how the Olympics works — they're going to try and sell tickets, so they'll build the grandstand, make it bigger than a WSL event in the sense that they'll ticket it, and I don't think they'll let surfing be completely free to watch. There you go — bold prediction — because of the style of the point, they're going to sell

[07:14] tickets to watch it. And I'm not saying you couldn't go and stand on the beach at Burleigh and watch it from afar — but I'd guarantee, well, I can't actually guarantee anything, I'm not in a position to, but in my mind that whole area would be ticketed for the Olympics and limited. So that's exactly why Snapper's the place to do it — because you're ticketed.

[07:44] You get there, you don't have to fight the crowds, but it'll be limited how you can watch it — and the very notion of restricting it like that is so anti-surfing. The Olympics is anti-surfing in that sense. I'll probably get shot down for saying that, but it's the new age of the Olympics, right? Take it to the extreme — for Paris, the surfing went to

[08:14] Teahupo'o — Teahupo'o in Tahiti, a whole other country, halfway around the world from Paris for their own Olympic Games. And yeah, it's the best wave in the world, it was French territory and all that, but the fact is, when you're talking about the Olympics and athletes wanting to be part of it, around it, I don't think I've ever heard of a sport held that far away from its own Games. It's interesting because the most recent Olympics, as you say, Teahupo'o now

[08:45] wasn't ticketed for spectators, wasn't a drama there — you either had a boat to get into the channel or you didn't, they didn't have that problem. I'm just quickly Googling — Tsurigasaki Beach in Japan is where the surfing was held for the Tokyo Olympics. I'm not sure what the setup was like there, I've never been, but Snapper, if it isn't already, should be the location for the surfing at Brisbane 2032. What I mean by that being anti-surfing is what makes the WSL event and other surfing

[09:17] events great — when you go down there you can walk out and stand in shin-deep, knee-deep water and almost reach out and touch the surfers as they catch the wave off the rock and everything else. So the idea that the IOC might come in and say, 'righto, the beach is closed here, closed all the way around to, I don't know, Rainbow Bay, unless you've got a ticket' — that'll be a real moment.

[09:49] We're guessing, I'm guessing — no, it's fun though. If you think about when the Commonwealth Games had beach volleyball down at Kirra, you couldn't just go and watch it, it was a ticketed event into a grandstand. This'll be fun. I enjoy this, but I also take the view that Olympic performance matters more — for 2032 it should be at Snapper. But from a major-event perspective, Burleigh's the location. Burleigh was great. It's good, it's good.

[10:19] Let's get into some running, mate. I found this post and wanted to bring it straight in — but before we do, when you're up on the trails, I know you don't always run with headphones in. Well, sometimes. What do you listen to? Either a podcast, a long one I'm happy to run to, or just music. The way I do it, I get into Spotify, pick a song I generally like, and put the radio on from there. So you let the algorithm

[10:50] decide. I'll just let it find some new songs — at the moment I've been doing a lot of Triple J, like their cover versions. Some of them I hate, some I like, but it's all variety and new songs I probably haven't heard. That's where I'm at. What about you? If I run with my phone I'll listen to a podcast; if I don't and I've just got my watch, I've only got one playlist preloaded on it, which is a hip-hop playlist. So it's not curated,

[11:21] well, I think Spotify curated it for me when I uploaded it, and I haven't changed it since, so I probably should. But the idea of actually making a playlist to run to — I don't know if I can be bothered, that's kind of my attitude toward it. That's why the radio function works so well for me, you pick whatever song takes your fancy that week, and I'm like, oh, I feel like that one today, hit the radio and just get fed songs in that vein. And I think I'm contractually obliged to say don't forget about the Listnr app, which is

[11:56] the company I work for. Go on, I'll let you have a bit of a spiel here, because I want you to explain to me — the podcaster who always plugs Listnr, 'come to Listnr, come to Listnr' — what it actually is. So, Listnr is some IP that the company I work for, Southern Cross Austereo, created. They built this

[12:27] player, and it's essentially, for lack of a better comparison, their own Spotify — except they own the IP of it. It's where they stream all their radio shows, so you can live-stream, and more and more people are listening to radio through this kind of platform now. As digital radio grows, Listnr is SCA's way of keeping pace and moving forward.

[12:57] So it's kind of like on-demand TV, but for radio. Yeah, and they've also got podcasts added in there — their whole suite, including the podcasts they've licensed from overseas. And there's specific radio too — if you're into country music there's a Triple M Country, if you're into 80s there's a station for that. It makes sense, like Channel 7 and 7Plus, exactly the same idea. Anyway, so I found this post — it's from Track House, a great Instagram account if you love your running. What they've done is get 500 runners to tell them their favourite songs to run

[13:29] to, and condensed it down to a top five. 500 runners is a decent sample size, and these are the top five tracks people run to from that survey. Let's start with number five — a song I'd never heard before.

[14:00] I like that one. It's by Eagles of Death Metal — band I've heard of, but the song's called 'Miss Alissa,' and apparently it featured in a famous Nike ad back in 2014. Yeah, I hadn't heard it either. The comment on it was you'll feel like you're in a movie while racing a middle-aged mum in a parkrun. Maybe enough people have run in Nike gear and heard it over and over. This would be American, I'm assuming — yeah, probably, and once you hear the rest of this list, I think it's a big tick for Nike overall.

[14:32] The fact that a song from a Nike ad has cut through like that — because the rest of these, I think people will know. Coming in at number four, a golden oldie. How often do you play 'Eye of the Tiger' on the show, on the radio station? Yeah, I reckon I used to play it more when we were in Brisbane; now on the Gold Coast Breakfast show, probably not as much, but yeah — 'Eye of the Tiger' by Survivor. That song's older than me — 1982,

[15:03] that song came out. Good song anyway. Number three — you've got to wait for this one to rev up. I did a lot of running to this one. Really? Yeah, I remember it — Florence + the Machine, 'Dog Days Are Over.' I've only got the start here, but it ramps up, so this would be a good build song — if you're doing 1K reps or something and want to bring it home. That's nice. OK, number two, a much more recent song, let's go —

[15:36] 'Can't Hold Us' by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, straight up a good running track. Yeah, that's a good running tune. And then — did the number one surprise you? Yes, it did. I only know this song for one reason — it was from that Netflix show where all the kids in the house had superpowers, one of them was like an ape-style X-Men thing.

[16:10] This is going to do my head in for the rest of the show now. Hold on — Netflix show, kids with superpowers, in a house, and their dad — is it Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? No, not that one. 'Extraordinary'? No. 'We Can Be Heroes'? No, I'll find it in a minute — Umbrella Academy! Umbrella Academy, there we go, we got there, and

[16:40] we've probably lost half the audience there. But yeah — I guarantee people were running along going 'Umbrella Academy, Umbrella Academy' trying to remember. Yes, so it was in the soundtrack, they had a good soundtrack for the first series. I've never seen it, but the song's called 'Run Boy Run' by Woodkid.

[17:18] I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. So do I. I deliberately avoided listening to it since I sent you the post, because I knew I hadn't heard it. It's a horrible song to run to. Well, it gets you going, I'll give it that. But you know why I reckon it's the most popular — 'Run Boy Run.' So if you type in anything to do with running, search running songs, anything to do with

[17:50] running — it just resonates. 'Run Boy Run,' there you go. That's clever, I don't think they even meant it that way. Well, hold on — maybe there's an opportunity for us to write a song and make it number one, just call it 'Run Faster.' Running, just running, I'm running. It was a huge part of that Umbrella Academy soundtrack. Anyway, those are the top five songs to run to according to Track House and their survey — good work. I like Track House. Again, if you love your running content, it's the account underscore track house underscore.

[18:22] Yeah, it's a really great account for running pop culture stuff. Let's move on — Welcome to Wrexham, have you watched it? Oh yeah, 100%. They're coming to town, which is why I've got it on the show this week, why I'm talking about it. So, Welcome to Wrexham — if you haven't heard about it, it's on Disney, it's about a soccer team. I've done a bit of background on it. Let's go from the beginning — the club was purchased by the Hollywood stars,

[18:53] Ryan Reynolds and — here we go, this'll be fun — Rob, say his surname. McElhaney? You're close, it's McElhenny. Is that how he says it? Yeah. OK, so they bought the team for 2.5 million US dollars, and I saw yesterday, whether it's right or wrong, it's worth about 400 million now. So not a bad investment, as a football club. It was formed in 1864, it's the oldest club in Wales, and the third-oldest professional

[19:26] football team in the world. Cool story. If you haven't watched the doco, it's easy to go back and it's such a well-produced sports documentary. I think sports docos — we've talked a bit about The Last Dance, Sprint, and these others — Drive to Survive kind of started that formula, and now they've done an F1 one, a tennis one, and I'm watching NASCAR at the

[19:57] moment — same exact formula. I think Welcome to Wrexham is unique, it's got a story, a different format, and I really like it. So if you're looking to freshen up your sports doco viewing, I'd recommend Welcome to Wrexham. It's got — there are two stories in one. You've got the usual sports story like you get in Formula One, NASCAR, whatever it is, of a club or team or driver striving to get through the leagues, week to week, what goes on.

[20:28] Then you've got the secondary story of these Hollywood owners creating tourism for the town, building the club, and everything they go through owning a football team. It's amazing, a great documentary. And the other part of it is the news this week that they're coming down here in the offseason, or pre-season — they're going to play Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC, and Wellington Phoenix. Do you watch the A-League? No, I'm not sure who does

[20:59] the A-League. We shouldn't say that — soccer's one of the biggest, if not the biggest participation sport here in Australia. My daughter plays soccer, I played growing up, I love the sport. The A-League has an identity problem, and we don't have time to unpack it all today, but I'll say this quickly — it's not like the NBL, which can be seen as a feeder league, you can launch out of the NBL and go on to greater things. The NBL Next Stars

[21:30] program is really smart, really astute. The A-League has an identity problem in that if a young footballer's any good, they're off to an academy system overseas by the time they're 16. And then if they're any good later in life, they either move on or age out of those elite leagues over in Europe. Now there's so much money in the Middle East and Asia too, so why

[22:01] would you come back here to play? I just think the A-League has an identity problem in terms of what it represents as a league — the same problem most European-based professional sports have here in Australia. Take cycling, to bring it back to endurance sport — cycling has the same issue. If you're going to make it in cycling, you're in Europe. Even as a young guy coming through the ranks in Australia, as soon as you're good enough you'll be signed to some feeder team, some team in

[22:31] Europe. You want to race in Europe, get experience in Europe. Even triathlon at an Olympic level has gone the same way, because all the Olympic Games stuff is driven out of Europe — if you're going to make it, you've got to be there. And what that means is when you want your off-season, you're generally back here in Australia. Benita touched on this a bit on some of the marathon episodes we've been doing, about basically living over in Europe for most of her career. Yeah, and it's a long haul thinking you've got to come back and forth,

[23:01] whereas if you're in Asia, no stress. And there are certain comps in America too, but Europe's the main hub. Great news that Wrexham's coming to town, though. Would you go? Yeah, absolutely. So we just said we don't watch the A-League, don't watch soccer, but I want to go to this too. To drag it back to running — it's the experience, it's the event. Same notion as if you said to a lot of people, 'hey, go run 21K,' and they say no way. Would you buy merch just

[23:34] to feel like you're part of it? Yeah. But as I get older — and I'm not that old — I've hit a point where I feel like if you're going to do something, just go all in on it. What's the point in dipping your toe half into something? That doesn't mean becoming obsessive about everything you do, but if you're going to go to one of these games, why wouldn't you throw yourself

[24:04] in, all in? In for a penny, in for a pound. I reckon these are going to be hot tickets, so you'd want to get in early if they even go on sale — probably already gone. Does Red Bull sponsor them? They've got a few soccer teams, I think they've got Wrexham, yeah. Anyway — let's get back to a bit more running. Timothy McDonald sent us a message about this — we've talked before about Strava Premium and you not having it, and I didn't realise this.

[24:36] His suggestion was just get the Strava Premium friends and family plan — you can get four people on a 12-month plan for $150. I had no idea this was even an offering. Neither did I — Strava does a premium friends and family plan. Probably should have fact-checked this, but Tim, I trust you. And that makes me think, Liam, why wouldn't you just go in with four mates and split the cost? So what,

[25:06] you're paying $40 or $50 a year? Subscribers on a family plan pay $140 a year plus applicable taxes, and so on. So it actually just says 'family plan,' not 'family and friends' — but they're not going to know who your friends are, are they? Updated subscription prices — subscribers on a family plan in Australia pay $170 a year. Not sure exactly what that involves, but that's interesting, I didn't even know there was a family plan to begin with.

[25:39] But if that covers four of you, that's a really hot tip from Tim. I'll double down on that Strava prediction I made about usability for non-premium users — I think it's going to accelerate, and by September, by the time we hit peak running season, it's going to be tough to use Strava unless you're on premium. I'm already thinking of a birthday present for you, Liam — I've got it, and it's kind of a giveaway, but I'm not

[26:09] going to say. I was going to buy you a premium subscription, but now I know I can get it cheap. Nice one. Hey, good mate Ryan Kelso — Ryan, the king of Armada — sent this in, staying on the Strava theme. Imagine if Strava had an occupation section — so instead of just competing against people on your segments, broken down by age, sex and all that, it also gave you occupation.

[26:39] So you're stacked up against your fellow tradies, whatever. We did a run this morning with another local run club, all chasing the crown on a little 1.2K segment — a local builder currently holds it, and there were another two chasing him down this morning. Absolutely hilarious, the banter between the fastest builders in town. This is good, this is good. I don't know about the job-specific thing myself, hasn't quite clicked for me,

[27:10] but what Ryan's just sparked is another idea — I don't have premium, so maybe you can already do this, but I think if you hold the crown on a segment you should be able to record a little boast video, or a GIF, just to say 'I'm number one here.' How good would that be, adding that bit of playability and interactivity to Strava? Wouldn't that motivate you a

[27:41] little more if there was a video on a segment out on the trails of someone saying 'come at me' — well, come at me, Courtney. Depends, mate, that could really annoy some people too, imagine that being annoying. Yeah, for the competitive ones I get it, could be a bit of fun. And if you're not competitive, you're probably not chasing crowns on Strava anyway. Here's a question, putting you on

[28:11] the spot — is there one thing Strava doesn't do that you'd like it to? Not about premium features necessarily, just what else would you want. Can you change the voice? I think at the moment it's only male or female. What voice? Well, if you run off your watch rather than your phone, Strava gives you voice announcements as you run. Really? You must have that turned on as a setting — I've never heard it,

[28:44] actually. I'd love Strava's voice to be updated to be a bit more conversational, give you a few different options like Siri does. This just shows where my injury's at, that I haven't been using Strava much. Is there anything it doesn't do that you'd like, as someone performing at a higher level? For example, actually this morning I just used my phone, didn't run long enough to warrant putting a watch on,

[29:15] just held my phone and used that. And I know you can set your screen to not turn off, but I'd like that function built into Strava specifically — it might already be there, I haven't looked into it enough — so that when I'm on Strava recording, my phone screen doesn't go blank if I'm checking it every minute or so, and I don't have to keep reactivating it. That'd be a good function. Genuinely, I think Strava's going to look almost unrecognisable in the next 6 to 12 months

[29:48] from what it is now — with the acquisition of Runna and whatever else is going on in the background at the moment, I think we're in a phase about to see a real evolution of what is, when you think about it, a relatively straightforward, basic app. It records data, it's brilliant at what it does, it motivates people, keeps you accountable — there are so many good things

[30:18] about it. I'm with you, I just hope it doesn't go too far. Here's a thought — does it recommend runners to follow? No — wait, actually it does. There we go, I knew that. Oh, I just got recommended Lindsay Laurie. Did you? Yeah, your mate — Linds is actually going to do the sweeping for us at Red Bull Race the Sun this year. Nice, I'll give him a follow. Handy. But going back to that,

[30:49] on your icon you'll see different things pop up — some people have different coloured little arrows, some have two arrows, some have a funky star. That all means something in the back end. If you're an elite athlete, a true professional runner, you can go into Strava and say, hey, I've earned a bit of kudos here,

[31:19] I'm pretty good, this is my ranking, can I get a free pro account? And they give you the little icon. Do you have one? I'm not sure. The reason I'm telling this story is before I got into any of that, we were doing some stuff with Strava through businesses, and I got this funky little star — I'm not a pro runner, but a runner of note, I suppose, the more influencer-type people they work with. They've got this little

[31:49] official icon to say 'this is actually that real person.' If you search Jelly Roll on Strava, he'll have that funky little star, not an arrow — it's basically like a verified tick. What have I got? You've got the two arrows, the chevrons — that still counts you as a pro, I think. You've got more Strava followers than Jelly Roll, just FYI. Oh, do I?

[32:20] Yeah, you've got 15,000 on Strava, Jelly Roll's only got 12 and a half thousand. Come on. Hold on, are you sure that's not his club? No, that's Jelly Roll himself, which goes to show he hasn't converted that many followers over. But how many Instagram followers have you got? God, I don't know, 18,000 or something, probably similar. Right, Jelly Roll's got 4.3 million there — so he's got me beat, I'll give him that. But with these arrows, if no one's ever

[32:51] thought about this — and it's completely irrelevant, but if you have premium I'm pretty sure it gives you one arrow for premium, two arrows for pro runners, and then the star means 'hey, we've verified this person's real.' Nice. Now let's tie up some loose ends — have we actually got to your running yet? We should. Let's get into it. Well, I think, I hope

[33:24] you're ready for this — I think we need to cancel the podcast. Why? It's gotten out of hand. I spoke to you about this the other day — I've now got people following me on Strava and I'm not even running, my running's not that interesting, so that's strike one. Strike two — I got an email from the Gold Coast Marathon the other day asking if I'd like to

[33:57] participate in a photo shoot for runners for the Gold Coast Marathon. Did you say yes? Yeah, I did. Oh, good. Have you got your phone handy? Yeah. Alright, I'm going to send you a photo — this is strike three. For me, this is the sign that this whole running-and-podcast business has gotten out of hand. It's gotten silly.

[34:27] I've sent you a photo — is that you with two people working on you at once? That's me at the physio the other day, with two people. Special treatment. I joked about it on the Wednesday Gold Coast Marathon call with Benita and Bronte, that I felt like a pro athlete having my physio and my coach discussing me as an athlete over email. I turned up for my physio

[34:59] appointment the other day and Liam Ryan from Gold Coast Physio in Burleigh was working on the problematic calf. All of a sudden the other calf started acting up too, and Britt walked in — I thought she was just having a laugh at first, but then she stayed. So for ten minutes during the week I had two highly qualified experts working on my crappy, can't-run-under-3:20-in-a-marathon legs.

[35:31] I thought, this is embarrassing, this has gotten out of hand. And Trent the masseuse took a photo of it. I think that's a good sign to wrap this segment up — we'll put that photo up. Sounds like they're rolling out the red carpet for you, mate. Do they charge double? I didn't check. The last laugh might be on you there. Genuinely, thanks Trent, Britt, Leo. Now, rewinding back to the photo shoot — this is a Gold Coast Marathon

[36:03] thing — is it like a calendar, men and women runners at the Gold Coast Marathon? I got an email from — I'll find it — it's from Dylan, who's in charge of marketing and a few other things. I'm a little bit upset. Upset that you didn't get the email? Well, obviously. Well, you're not running, mate. Fair, I'm not running. The photographer's name is — I'll look him up — it hasn't happened yet, so

[36:35] there's every chance now that I've talked about it on air, I'll get canned. But it's Paul Harris — Dylan sent me a link to the style of marathon profile photos he does. When you say 'style and profile,' it's not like one of those nude — not like the old black-and-white nude ones. Have you ever appeared in one of those, been photographed nude? Not that I can think of, honestly.

[37:08] We wouldn't get away with that stuff these days, would you? No, I don't mean it in that sense — more like a firefighters' calendar sort of idea. So this is like the calendar you're appearing in for the Gold Coast Marathon. I reckon back in 2000 there was a black-and-white Olympic edition photography magazine — Lauren Jackson was in it, Tatiana Grigorieva was in it, I don't think I was, but Clem was in it. All big names, so they don't come down to the B-grade sports. But Paul as a photographer, go

[37:39] check him out, paulharrisphotographer.com. It's cool stuff — he's got a series called In the Long Run, specifically about runners. Benita's in there, Rob de Castella's in there, Steve Moneghetti's in there, they're quite cool. And Dylan from the Gold Coast Marathon emailed asking if I'd be interested. Ando's in there too — Ando from Wild Earth, shout out Ando. Really cool photos, and I was looking through them thinking,

[38:10] hold on, what am I doing in this company? They'll make you look good, I hope. Anyway — my point is, this has been fun, but I think it's time to wrap this up, because it's getting silly now, I don't need photo shoots and multiple physios working on me. So, on the running front — are you running? I am. As of today, day of recording, I ran 6 and a half K's yesterday on the treadmill. Treadmill? Yeah, because the program Benita set for me as I build back

[38:43] volume has some treadmill runs mixed with more endurance and cross-training. I've complained before about stationary bike riding, mate, but the elliptical sucks even more. Yeah, that's horrible. So you're not on the bike, you're on the elliptical? No, both — treadmill into elliptical. I was allowed to run 35 minutes on the treadmill, into 30

[39:13] to 40 minutes cross-training on the bike or elliptical. I'd never been on an elliptical before — horrible, weird feeling, didn't like it at all. So today I went back to the bike, never doing the elliptical again. But I actually love the treadmill, same reason I like the stationary bike — it's about just getting the work done. I hate sitting there for the sake of it, I'd much rather be outside, but you can get some really good sessions done on a treadmill. I did 6K's at 5:10 pace with a warm-up and a slow

[39:46] cool-down obviously. Calf feels fine, feels good — the double massage from Britt and Liam did the trick. It was funny though, they got competitive — as soon as Britt started working on my right calf, Liam started pushing harder on my left, and I was like, what are you doing? Very competitive in the physio world. And you're doing strength work too — at the gym, not on back-to-back days at the moment, days off in between, but the heavy stuff at the gym is on the Smith

[40:17] machine — for those who don't know, it's the automated squat rack you see people using, not free weights. I'm doing a forward lunge on it, pushing up with the back leg, and then some kind of hold — plyometric, or is it isometric? Basically I lock the Smith machine in place so I can push against it as hard as I want and it won't move, tensing the muscle — isometric, that might be the word,

[40:49] isometric holds. And then basically every day at home it's calf raises, single-leg, straight-leg, bent-knee — that kind of thing. They'll just throw those names at you, we might've even got some wrong. Isn't it funny, all the terminology, every industry's got it, but the people in the know just take it on as 'this is what I do.' I can't really explain it, and I think it's interesting

[41:22] because when you talk to a physio, I love it when the information comes in plain terms — like, what is it? Oh, it's just a stationary hold. I don't really care what it's called, I just need to know how to do it, and maybe why. I like to know why to a degree, but some people just want to do it. I'm the opposite, just tell me what I need to do, I don't need to understand it. So basically the running's slowly coming back, though I'll tell you what — after 35 minutes on the treadmill, I thought, oh boy, a marathon seems really hard right now.

[41:54] It felt tough, it's a long way for just 35 minutes. How's your injury going, how's your return to running? All going well — I'm up to nine weeks now. Nine weeks, but I'm running. You're running? Ran this morning. What'd you do? Fifteen minutes, one-minute jog — moving pretty OK — then 30 seconds walk, for 15 minutes total. Two days ago I started

[42:25] with 30 seconds jog, 30 seconds walk, and that was awful — my knees, of all things, because I hadn't done much weight-bearing stuff, just some activation work to get ready for this. It was awful. Today felt like a new person, the muscles, everything. I've been doing some single-leg squats and a few things because my knees were hurting, better get that sorted quickly. But when I was running the 15 minutes

[42:58] the running felt like nothing, but the 30-second breaks meant I actually started to feel my heart rate come up a bit, and I think I got a little excited. What pace do you reckon, over your 15 minutes of walk-jogs — a minute on, 30 seconds off? Well, before you told me, I'd have guessed you got excited and were running about 4:30 pace. But for the whole thing including the walks, what do you

[43:28] mean 4:30? You're not going to hold 4:30 doing a minute on, 30 seconds off — no, I meant you were running those one-minute reps at 4:30 pace. I don't know, I just saw at the end of 15 minutes I'd averaged 5:20s and thought, oops, that's way too fast. Yeah, that's what I thought too. I figured you'd be running the reps at 4:30 and walking at like 12-minute pace. It wasn't like that on Monday, but I don't know what happened today. I've got to, I've got to

[43:59] settle down, that's way too fast, even I know that. I won't go back through everything we're doing, but I'm only going to be running every second day for the foreseeable future, with cross-training in between, keeping the progression really conservative. I do want to reiterate this to everyone, because I did it with my calves last year too — walk-jogging when you're coming back might feel like a cop-out, but I'd do it even if I'd just had a month off

[44:30] — say I went on a boat for a month and couldn't run on holiday, I'd come back and start with walk-jogging. Back in my triathlon days, when I'd get injured or have niggles, I'd never go through this phase, only if you were seriously injured. But I think anyone coming back from time off, or who just hasn't been running much, or who's about to start — this is, as far as I'm concerned, the only way, and

[45:01] I've learnt that over the last few years. Why is it such a good way to return to running from an injury or layoff? Multiple reasons — the key one is that walking in between gives you a bit of rest, so you're staying conservative. It also gives you a real clear indication, minute by minute, of when you're getting tired, starting to overdo it, or when a muscle or your knee is flaring up — something you don't get when you're just running continuously.

[45:34] The other way would be to just run 10 minutes continuous this morning, but the problem is your form falls apart — if you haven't been running and you're not used to it and your knees start hurting, your form deteriorates, you end up running less well, and it can actually be more detrimental to your comeback because your hips drop, everything tightens up. Whereas taking that little walk between reps, you perk back up again and can keep going and going and

[46:05] going. And as I build this out further, even once I get back to running normally — say I'm out running 90 minutes — I reckon I'll still throw in a minute's walk every 20 minutes or so. That's just something I've learnt coming back from a few of these injuries over the years — I'll still put a bit of walking into my long runs in the initial

[46:35] phases, even running up to 60, 70, 90 minutes. That's really interesting, because we've heard people preach walk-running for years, and going back to that terminology point — like isometric, plyometric — I've had people in the office say, 'oh no, I can't run, I couldn't run 5K,' and I've told them to start with walk-running, only because in my mind the rationale was that

[47:08] it's easier — but I hadn't really thought about it as also letting you maintain proper running form. It can seem like a cop-out, like you just want to get back to running, and I would always load up and progress instead — 10 minutes one day, 20 the next, a day off, 20, 30, a day off — always continuous runs. But over the last few years, coming back from a few things, this walk-jog idea has been an absolute game changer for me.

[47:40] A lot of people probably already do it this way, but I'm sure there are a few like me who in the past always pushed for the maximum, always thinking 'I want to run more.' Here's a comparison for the musicians listening — it's a lot like learning scales before playing the full song. When I used to learn piano, I'd sit down and say, 'awesome, I want to learn that song,' and the teacher would go, 'no, you're going to learn scales first.' 'But can't you just teach me the song?' 'No, scales first.'

[48:11] There you go, brilliant. I reckon that's a good time to wrap up — we're both running again, everything's good, we're back. For everybody out there, the followers and listeners keep climbing for the podcast, keep sharing the love. If you're listening and haven't subscribed yet, please do — it helps the podcast, helps us keep bringing episodes to you, helps us do the fun, cool stuff like the Gold Coast Marathon project we've got going midweek at the moment. We've got ideas for after that,

[48:41] but we want to keep going. So please subscribe, leave comments, recommend it to your friends, leave reviews, all that stuff — it helps the podcast. We'll see you next week. See you next week.