EP 38 - WHAT IS EVEN IMPRESSIVE ANYMORE? THE ENDURANCE ARMS RACE

[00:00] In the Beginning, episode 38, we're back. Courtney, thank you for the Red Bull at the top of today's episode, because my God do I need it today. You've had a week, haven't you? Tell us the story. Tell our listeners this story. If you're not following me on Instagram, feel free to jump on board. What is my Instagram account? I should know that — is it Liam J Flanagan? I think it's Liam J Flanagan. Feel free to jump on. At the start of this week — I've been working in radio for 12 years now, started in 2012, and I've been in the studio

[00:32] environment since 2013, so this is year 12 working in the studio environment. You run the desk, you press the buttons, being in and around the panel as it's called. Up until the start of this week, I was mistake-free — not mistake-free in that I've taken us off air sometimes, as you know, but from a cleanliness and safety of the studio environment point of view, mistake-free. On Monday's show of the radio breakfast show that I do,

[01:03] Triple M Gold Breakfast, I tipped a full cup of coffee into the desk. Now if you don't understand the gravity of that situation — imagine, this is the best comparison I've been able to come up with since it happened — imagine if, as you're sitting on the tarmac, the pilot comes on over the loudspeaker and says, 'Sorry ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be delayed slightly, my co-pilot has just tipped an entire cup of coffee into the

[01:35] console of the plane.' It is the biggest mistake you can make, allowing fluid to get into that desk. I think the desk's worth about 50 grand. What was the immediate reaction from Liesl and the crew? Well, they laughed. Yeah, I would too. I said 'shit,' and then paper towel emerged from nowhere. But this wasn't just a spill — it was a full cup, like a full cup

[02:06] of coffee into the desk. And to make matters worse, we only have one tech in our office, and he was in Tasmania, so two techs had to drive down from Brisbane later that day. It took that whole studio offline for the entire day. I wasn't there for this moment, but apparently when the techs took the desk apart, it was like a scene from a movie — you know, when they bring something up from the ocean floor and as it gets to the surface, all the water just pours out.

[02:36] When they took the desk apart, coffee was just still pouring out. And the next day my boss turned up and presented me with a ceremonial sippy cup — that's the only thing I'm allowed to drink coffee out of in the studio now. This is part of your legacy now. They'll never forget it. It's interesting you mention that, because some people are still not laughing about it. Everything's fine now, it's fixed, but — who is that guy? I can't name names, but there are people within my office who

[03:09] did not, and still do not, see the funny side of it. Because the other part is we have two studios for Triple M Gold, and some shows for the Triple M network nationally are also done out of our studio, so we need two operational studios at any one time. I essentially cut off one of our legs for an entire day. So the people that had to deal with that — it was ongoing. And then you leave the office and...

[03:39] Then I left at — I said, 'I'll see you tomorrow morning.' I left at 9:01. The moment we went off air that day, I was gone, I flew out the door. Well, the good news is you've still got a job. Yeah, I'm still employed. But I'm not allowed to take coffee into the studio anymore — it's a ban I've imposed on myself. I felt for you that day, I really did. Quickly, the other update I want to give everybody — and I'll talk a bit more about this in next

[04:10] Wednesday's marathon episode with Bronte and Benita — but I made the decision, because the offer came to participate in a photo shoot for the Gold Coast Marathon this year by local photographer Paul Harris, to still go ahead with the photo shoot even after pulling out of the marathon. Oh, they were good. You're not officially off the entry list, so you're still on it, you've still got a number. Did you have to do it on race day when you get the photo? No, no, no. This is why I wanted to

[04:41] ask you, because as a professional athlete for two decades you would have been through hundreds of these photo shoots. But before we get to me, I want to know what happened on your day. This is why I want to bring up Bronte — Bronte did it on a different day. Bronte did hers all together. More pressure? No, one-on-one is better than having an audience. If you're getting photographed doing whatever you're asked to do and Bronte and everyone else is standing there watching, that's more pressure than one-on-one.

[05:11] For anybody out there who's never done a photo shoot before, I felt like an absolute twit, like a wanker, doing it. But Paul was amazing, he's an amazing photographer, it was great to work with him. What happened was — he's doing a water thing, seeing how water plays with runners. So what I had to do was, in

[05:41] Varsity Lakes, on the side of the street in Varsity Lakes — this is getting interesting. What Paul had me do was run, and then when I hit a certain spot, throw a cup of water in my face. With the public driving past you? This sounds like a rogue photo shoot. The only people who'd be comfortable doing this are young kids who are on Instagram and TikTok — this is normal activity

[06:11] for them now, I think it's a trend. But I kept count — I did about 25 takes of me, with probably a 67-metre run-up, trying to hit a certain spot while at the same time throwing a cup of water into my own face, from different angles, from high, from in front. I think in the first three I threw the entire cup of water up my nose, and then I'm running around with water up my nose and

[06:45] thinking, this can't be making for a good flash — external flash and all the rest of it. There's two types of photographers, right — this is the inexperience of it. You've got the photographer who's more a studio photographer, and that's what he sounds like, trying to achieve the perfect flash at the perfect time, the perfect running stance, getting it at that exact moment. That's a bloody nightmare for the

[07:15] talent, the model, because it's the photographer wanting to get their perfect shot. Then you get what I'll call the looser, more modern photographers, who are more around action sports — natural light, high shutter rates, they'll get thirty shots, make you do it twice, and go 'I've got one,' and walk away. My favourites, right, 100%. But no, this was very much the studio

[07:45] photographer setup. He had me do a test shot for lighting and flash, trying to hit the certain spot at the certain moment. In the end it was fun though, because I'm obviously trying to return to running a bit at the moment, and he said, 'Right, can I try and get you running a bit faster?' I was like, 'I don't know, we'll find out, don't put my car in yet.' After I did these run-through shots, we carried the big lighting equipment down into a little mangrove-y, foresty spot off the side of the road. The next challenge I had was

[08:18] to hold a tub of water above my head and tip it, creating a bit of a waterfall sheet of water in front of my face, and pull it back at the same time — it felt like when you were a kid and they'd say pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time, all while trying to give an intense, focused look down the barrel — your best Zoolander look down the barrel. All I'm thinking is, you've pulled out of the marathon and they're just taking the piss out of you.

[08:48] But I messaged Bronte straight afterwards and said, 'How did yours go?' And she said, honestly, if someone turned around and told her tomorrow in the radio studio that it was a prank, she'd believe them, because it felt ridiculous. She did a bit of a different one, she was in Paul's studio. I can't wait to see the photos, I've looked at Paul's work, I think they're fantastic. Me too — the process, how the sausage was made. It was an eye-opener. The other thing with running photos is the hardest thing is getting the right running

[09:20] stance. The photographer said, another thing over the years, people who know running kind of know what a good running photo looks like, whereas non-running photographers' perspective on what they're looking for in a running shot is completely different — where's the background, the focus on the face, and then your leg's half in a half-stance and you're not even running in a still photo. That's a nightmare. Over your years — two Olympic Games, World Championships, everything —

[09:51] what's the dumbest photo shoot you've had to participate in, or the weirdest? Hands down the weirdest was going to 2008 Beijing. I went to the 2008 Olympics with FedEx as a sponsor — so cool, an international courier company — and they had an advert, we'll find this and put it up for those who watch the video on Spotify. The idea was to get me half

[10:21] athlete, half FedEx delivery man. I want to see this so badly already. You can imagine — I raced in skin suits with a helmet. So I literally had a cycling helmet on, my skin racing suit which had the FedEx logo, half a pair of run shoes, and then on the other side of the image is me in a FedEx delivery man suit, so the FedEx logo on my chest

[10:51] blends but my face is split in half — half a FedEx hat, half a helmet. It's weird. The irony is, the same day I had to do an activation for them in what I think is Martin Place in Sydney — the main pedestrian mall section, comes down some steps. They did an activation, their CEO at the time came out to meet me in a suit while I'm in my race suit, and I got on a tandem bike with him and did some laps around

[11:22] Martin Place with video cameras. We have to find this footage, I don't know if I can find the video, I've got the image. That was like — this is when I talk about being in a small fish bowl, but can you imagine watching that? It's probably not that different from what goes on every day in Sydney city now. But at that time I was young — in my twenties — riding around on a tandem bike in the middle of Sydney with a CEO in my

[11:54] Lycra. In my Lycra, the things you do. Were you at the front or the back? I would have been steering, for sure. The flip side, the CEO going, 'What's my company putting money into?' Whoever the agency was that came up with that idea — the concept was actually a good idea, and if they're looking to get bang for their buck out of you as a sponsored athlete, I'd be making you do some weird stuff too. And then to follow the story on — for years, and

[12:26] sorry, I can't remember the name, but our local FedEx guy — as part of the deal you'd have an amount of dollars' worth of being able to ship gear across the world and whatever else, so the local FedEx guy would send bikes and stuff, wind trainers and wheels, we could send them across to Europe before we travelled. So it was brilliant, we had our local FedEx guy who would always come and deliver, he knew me. But they had these life-size

[12:56] cutouts of this same image in the FedEx stores where you went to pick up your stuff. That's brilliant. I never went into the store. What do you mean you never went into the store? Can you imagine walking in and seeing yourself in your Lycra like that? If anybody out there has any connection to FedEx and thinks by chance we could find one of these cardboard cutouts of Courtney as the half-FedEx, half-athlete, I'd pay some money to get my hands on

[13:27] one of those. So that's, by far, there's been plenty, but that was definitely the weirdest. Can I take you into some sporting news? Let's get back to sport — it's running-related, but it's still some general sport. The Coolangatta Gold — one of the iconic sporting events in Australia, I think it's a uniquely Australian event. Back from the 80s it was a legacy event that made TV.

[13:59] Exactly, and it was actually out of a movie script — it was 1984, Grant Kenny was in it, Colin Friels was the actor, and it was this awesome film that then became a race. So it's a great staple on the Gold Coast calendar and the surf lifesaving calendar. But there's a big change coming to the Coolangatta Gold, because it's meant to be a grinding race

[14:29] — in context, you used to go from Surfers Paradise all the way to Coolangatta and back, and that location was part of what made these great endurance events, whether it's Coast to Coast in New Zealand, Hawaii Ironman, Coolangatta Gold — it was always about not just the race but the location, the story. You go right to the end and back. But over the years they kept shortening it and shortening it, and I think effectively in the end they were just running it out of Coolangatta doing

[15:02] laps. So what's happened this year? For those that aren't aware — sorry, the distance was originally 23 kilometres. Because what's happened is it's been shortened, so I'll run you through the new distances of this race. It used to be a 23-kilometre event; the surf swim used to be 3.5 K's, it's now a 2K swim.

[15:32] The board leg was a 6.1K board paddle, it's now a 4K board paddle. The run used to be 9.2 kilometres, it's now a 5-kilometre run. So the race itself has been reduced in total distance by about 40%. I'll go back to the idea of the location — you used to get out of Burleigh, out of the swim, swim around the headland, get out of the water and run from Burleigh all the way along the beach to Surfers Paradise. Iconic. Now it's doing laps up and down Coolangatta or Palm Beach or wherever.

[16:02] Not the same. So the question being asked about the Coolangatta Gold now is, is it still the Coolangatta Gold? You don't consider it, under this new shortened format, the Coolangatta Gold. When they moved the start to Surfers Paradise, it wasn't the same Coolangatta Gold to me. Probably around that same time I stopped following it as closely, once it wasn't that true race. And the other development

[16:33] is it's now going to be part of the Iron Series — previously it stood alone as its own event outside of the Surf Life Saving Series, now it's going to be shortened and become part of the series. Which in theory seems okay, but it was a standalone event, that's what made it unique, a one-off event. I don't know — you look at Ali Day, obviously the ten-time winner of

[17:05] the race — if someone wins it this year, will you consider them a Coolangatta Gold winner in the same fashion that Ali Day is, or that Matt Bevilacqua has been in the past? Honestly, I'd never really given it that much thought. It doesn't hold the same relevance for me anymore because it's not the original. I'm old enough to remember watching, as a kid, the Mercers, and even not as far back as

[17:38] Kyle Leach, but watching all those guys when it was on TV — I loved it for what it was. As soon as they changed the course and it wasn't the same course as the old days, it's like — let's look at it this way — it's like the Hawaii Ironman moving the men's world championship race to Nice in France. Did that have the same impact for the men or the women when they

[18:08] changed it? Are you across that? So what they did — the Kona one, isn't it? No — so a few years ago they split the men's and women's races: the men only raced in Kona, and the women raced in Nice. I didn't even know that. My point — you didn't know, you just assume it runs in Kona. So when the men didn't race in Kona that year and the world championship was over in France, is winning it in France the same as winning it in Kona?

[18:39] You can still call yourself world champion, as long as — but you didn't win in Hawaii, it's not the Hawaii Ironman. So my point stands — when you've got iconic races that are built on locations, and you move the location or change the course, it doesn't have the same impact. There we go, I like it. All right, let's move on from that. Let's get into a bit of FUD — what have we got here? Amy the runner, you'll love this one. James, huge effort out there today, how do you reflect on today's run? Tough conditions

[19:11] out there today, bit of wind, bit of sun, bit of indigestion, but 5K in 28:42, you'll take that all day long at this level. Started strong, 5:12 first kilometre, regret that — massively came out like Kipchoge, finished like someone chasing a bin truck in slippers. Happens, rookie stuff. There was a walk break near the duck pond, correct? Yeah, had to reset, heart rate was in the red, some bloke walking his dog gave me the 'you all right, mate' look, and that broke me a

[19:44] bit. And what do you say to the critics calling this just a jog? Listen, that was a battle — medical warfare, legs went at 3K, soul left the chat. But Strava doesn't lie, I earned no six kudos. And finally, James, congratulations, you're our Powerade Man of the Miles today. So when Jamie runs strong, it's if Sunday joggers got the Premier League treatment. That is bang on, and it's a great byproduct of the running

[20:15] boom that we're getting more of this sort of content. To that point though — this happens, I've seen it on YouTube. Oh, I've done it — I've done that run for a close friends' group. Right, not publicly, no, that would be ridiculous. But everything you just spoke about then, he's nailed all the parts of Sunday joking. I'm back to being a Sunday jogger by the way, I'll tell you more about that later on. But yeah, very nice work, I liked that one.

[20:45] That was a good one. The other thing is there's a question about run clubs — let's stay on run clubs and the image of running at the moment. I fear run clubs have gone too far, and people are agreeing with me. Over in the United States there's a reel — we'll share it — by the Bondi run club that was in the news.com yesterday, same issue, people having a go at them running out and saying this is ridiculous.

[21:17] So the statement is, this is now becoming a marathon without permits. Can this keep going? If run clubs keep growing, what's going to happen? Places like Bondi — Bondi — councils are going to get involved, because you reach a point where — and I went through this with The 440 in Sydney. Now, people out there listening

[21:48] to this may or may not know what The 440 is, but when I started with The 440 back in 2016, it was 10, anywhere between 6 to 12 people, very early on a Saturday morning. We'd meet down at the cutting in Bronte, run 10 laps of the cutting — a little over 7 K's, with good elevation from the hills — jump in the ocean, then leave. Over the years it grew and grew and grew, and now it's a perfect example

[22:18] of the influence of running culture, where they get in excess of 150, 200 people every Saturday morning, and that street becomes borderline unusable for cars. It's a danger issue. I don't know how Noxie, the fellow who runs it, navigated it with the councils, but I know it became an issue at a point, and he became really strict on trying to keep people onto the path. But it's just too many people, right, it becomes unachievable. So you'll get to a point with

[22:48] any group when it gets to a certain size — the Sydney run club down in Bondi, this Miami one — where it eats itself, right, becomes a victim of its own success. Personally I look at run clubs of that size and I've got no desire to be involved in one, because how do you know anybody? Run clubs for me are about connection, about community. I don't see how you can be connected in a group of that size.

[23:18] It might feel very connected because there's so many of you, but how do you actually know anybody? I suppose it's like going to a festival, isn't it — you're just going along with the masses, it's about that feeling. You've nailed it, it's like going along to a festival — what do festivals need to have? Permits, council approval, licences, all that stuff to coordinate, because these run groups start selling stuff now, and you need licences for that. Fair enough, if you grow and create

[23:49] this world around your run club, I'm stoked for you, but when you get to a certain level you have to accept that as you rise up you need more things to continue to function and operate — that's the reality. I hate that something that starts off so community-driven, for the right reasons, then has to have permits and all that. But that's the reality — like this one over in the States is making news now, it's probably going to come to a head at some point. You know the one thing you forgot about The 440?

[24:19] You forgot the group photo. It was really easy to coordinate with only six or ten of us every morning — when there's 150 people, you just move on, right. Honestly, by the time we got to that point, my mates and I would finish the run, jump straight in the pool and go get a coffee while everyone else was still lining up for the photo. Now, I don't want to do this next one, but you put it on the run sheet, so let's do it.

[24:52] I think you're about to bring up something about reaching its tipping point, bursting the bubble, whatever — but here it is. This has to stop, I want legislation to make this illegal. Have a listen to this: 'In eight days I'm going to be running what's called an Ultra Murph — an Ultra Murph is where you run a marathon, do 1,000 pull-ups, then 2,000 push-ups, then 3,000 squats, and then run another marathon, all while wearing a 20-pound weighted vest.

[25:22] This is something that hasn't really been done before, I think — we're just going to go try and set a record. If I can do it under 24 hours, I'm pretty sure that's going to be a world record. So that's what we're going to go for on Memorial Day, doing an Ultra Murph and seeing if we can set a record in the process. Do you want to run an Ultra Murph? So do you think I can do this in 24 hours? I don't want to run an Ultra Murph, but if you don't think I can — I'm going to break a world record.'

[25:52] This has to stop, people making up their own stuff just for the sake of it. I was talking about this with someone the other day — remember when running a really long way felt special or unique? It doesn't feel that way anymore. We've started to see this even with marathons — marathons don't feel special anymore. I used to think someone doing an Ironman

[26:26] was — I was an Olympic Games triathlete, and I used to watch people doing an Ironman and think 'wow.' Then it became, like I've said before, someone in a corporate office in the middle of the city doing an Ironman on the weekend and it's like 'oh, that's not enough anymore.' Do you not get that feeling when you see someone post that they've completed an Ironman nowadays? No, because enough people have done it over time,

[26:59] there's enough people who've gone through and now do Ironmans, but now people do Ironmans as their first triathlon. And now people go and create the Ultra Murph. I don't know — there's an interesting question in endurance sports right now, where I'm just not sure where you go when the normalisation of such long, multi-day events means we're getting away from that social-post reaction. But in general, you've

[27:30] got these backyard ultras, everything going ultra, ultra, ultra — it's getting so normalised. What is impressive? There you go, that's a good question — what is impressive now? I'm going to tell you what's impressive. When you take something that's normalised in a race and you do it bloody quick and win, that is impressive. Just to put a full stop on old

[28:01] mate here, the buff runner — what shits me about it, or, I don't know if it shits me, but what makes me go 'this is impressive' — don't get me wrong, when he does a marathon, a thousand pull-ups, and this Ultra Murph, it's an impressive physical effort, right. What frustrates me, or makes me question it, is that he said in the caption to this, 'do you think I can do it, drop a follow to watch me,' right. You're doing this because you

[28:34] want to become famous. Well, we accept that. I just think, even the middle ground when he said 'I'm not sure if anyone has done this, but maybe it is, maybe it's a first, I'll just call it a world record' — you don't know. We need something better than a world record, because I feel like — the problem is we can sit here and say all that, but you know what stops it? Other people stop encouraging it. We're sitting here

[29:06] enabling it. Stop enabling these people creating their own world records. Stop it. Tell him to go and try and win the CrossFit Games, or whatever it's called. Yep, that's what he should be doing — if you want to put your effort into something, go and compete where everyone competes. The thing about social media is, if you think about it, your social media is your TV station — for the old people out there, for the young kids out there

[29:37] who might be listening and don't know what a TV station is, it's your YouTube channel, it's your own station, your own brand. What this guy's trying to do is programme his brand, his station, with this sort of content, and it's kind of like announcing a big blockbuster movie on your station — 'hey, I'm doing this coming up,' instead of just the normal programming. So I understand the algorithm of it all, but it's so tiring. Enough's enough. Now, to be real hypocrites, let's

[30:08] get on to — you know what, let's get on to — make sure you're tuned in to In the Beginning Podcast to win a watch. I love your radio voice. Well, let's move on. That's the most hypocritical moment in podcast history — we're shitting on this bloke for going out and trying something, and then going 'now listen to our podcast and leave a review.' We're not saying it's a world first, but it's a podcast first — first time we've ever done a giveaway for the podcast, for us,

[30:38] yeah. So remind us — last week we said two weeks. Thanks to Polar, we're halfway through — the H10 heart rate monitor and the Polar Pacer GPS running watch. It's a running watch, it'll help you do those things we've talked about on the Polar episode. Can I talk about the H10? You can — I've been using it. You have? Yep, tried it. And here's what I'll tell everybody out there who runs off a wristwatch heart rate sensor —

[31:10] it's not accurate, the wristwatch, it's not accurate. I've said this multiple times to anyone with a wrist sensor — there might be a certain situation where it's the perfect environment and you've got the perfect wrist, but even then, not always. If you're running with a wrist sensor only and think you're in your Zone 2, you're not.

[31:42] That's my personal learning from having run with this thing for a week — I'm like, whoa, my heart rate, I'm working a lot harder than I thought I was on these easy runs. I thought a 5:15 pace was my Zone 2 pace — it is not. My Zone 2 pace is a lot slower than what I thought, because I've been wearing this H10 and getting proper data. If you want to use data properly, get a chest strap.

[32:13] Or at least go to the armband, that's the middle ground, but chest strap is best. So we'll leave this open for another week — what we said is send us in a review, I think we used the word review. And I can't remember his name, but one gentleman in particular was a bit frustrated because he was like, 'where do I leave a review on Spotify?' So yeah, Nick — is it just reviews that count, or other platforms? You're overcomplicating it for us. All we want is a comment.

[32:43] Comments count, comments count, tick the five stars, make us seem great. Thank you to everyone who's sent in — and even more than 'thanks fellas,' we love it when you give us info on what you want to hear about in future, or let us know what you do like, because then we can make sure we're talking about some of the things you're into. One who's sent in — I love the footy chat, Jared, love the footy chat, more of that please, fellas. Now, not everyone's going to like the footy chat, but we'll cover

[33:13] a bit wider than just running. Can I share this — BJ, I don't know where he's got this phrase from, but I love that he's signed off his comment with 'keep up the great work, boys, and stay out of yourselves.' I assume that means don't disappear up your own backside. Do you know where that's from? Alpha blokes, yes, it's great. I never wrote back to that one — I did see it, I wrote straight back to him and said, 'yeah, fellow alpha bloke.' Listener Kel — Kelso, rumour has it Ned Brockman only ran across Australia so Liam could talk about it on this

[33:44] podcast. All right, good to know we've got some smartness. Love everyone coming around. Some of the questions you were talking about, we'll get to the ones that have some real information in future episodes. I will say a big shout out too — I've really appreciated the messages off the back of pulling out of the marathon. The amount of people who've messaged me saying it's great to hear you talking about this, because I'm training, or I'm

[34:16] struggling, or I've had a slump, or I've had an injury — and you feel crap, but then when you hear it's common, it makes you feel less crap. There's people who've written in saying we're going through the same thing, we're injured, we can't run the marathon — and that's the truth, there'll be another day for sure. The other thing that keeps coming through is around the Queenstown Marathon, because apparently I'm running the Queenstown Marathon. That is a rumour that is

[34:46] completely founded on no truth at all. What I will say is — I'm trying to find who wrote in and said forget the Queenstown Marathon, come up to Nelson. Where's Nelson? I don't even know where Nelson is — it's up the north, here we go, Luke Smith wrote in: 'Hey boys, love the pod, before booking your flights to Queenstown' — I haven't booked my flights — 'you should check out an amazing running event in Nelson in December, it's called Run the Spectacle, and they have huge events

[35:17] varying from a mile race in the centre of town to a 100-mile trail run, 7,000 metres of elevation and everything in between. It's a real event for the town and the whole weekend the town's buzzing, check it out.' He's pretty much saying come here instead of Queenstown. Seeing is believing, 5th to the 6th of December, it looks amazing. My adventure mentor Rich Usher owns Cable Bay Adventure Park in Nelson, I've been up there — he's got a mountain bike trail, and he's got — now I'm going to get

[35:47] in trouble for saying this, but I believe it may be the longest — what would you call it — cable flying fox, I'll just throw that out there, in the Southern Hemisphere. Someone will tell us. You literally sit in a ski lift, a four-person ski chair, and you get flung across the valley, a good few kilometres across the valley. That's Richard's place — if you're ever in Nelson, go and have a visit at the cable park. Look, this

[36:18] is — I don't know how long the Spectacle's been running, but it's a great way for a town to host a running event, because there's something for everyone: relay races, a mile race, a 5K race on the roads, and then in the trail run everything from 10 to 100 miles. Literally something for everybody. There's so many events out there now, aren't there, they just keep coming.

[36:49] Hey, you'll love this one, it's a good one. 'Epic mate, love the pod, this comes from Back Beach.' Back Beach, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out — he or she hit subscribe on episode one because of Courtney, of course. I'd never heard of Liam at the time, but now — thanks Back Beach, Liam is my favourite voice, yeah, and favourite person to run along together. Your boys are awesome.

[37:20] So thank you Back Beach, I appreciate it. Getting back to this though — one more week to enter our comp, one more week, we'll give away the watch, we'll give away the H10 heart rate sensor. Thank you to everybody jumping in, and yes it might seem like a shameless way for us to get more of you on board with the podcast, that's what it is — but thanks to Polar, we get the chance to actually give something to someone that's more than just a hat or another T-shirt. So it's really exciting, thank you to everybody who's got involved.

[37:51] Yeah, absolutely, and we're listening, and any information we get we'll go with it, let us know. Can I ask, because it feels like a lifetime since you've talked about your running and I know you're back running a bit — how's the body? Pretty good. You know, the one thing that kills you — not literally, but hurts you — is sitting down.

[38:21] I had a great run on Tuesday, I've been going back to our Gold Coast Run Co group. I can't run the whole session yet, but I dipped in for the first bit — it was 8 by 30 seconds on/off. I ran through that, first time I'd run a bit quicker, jogged back home, all fine. Then I jumped in the car for six and a half hours to go out and do a course check on a few things, pulled up, and then had to fly to Sydney at 6am the next morning.

[38:51] So then I was sitting down in an office all day — I would have sat down for nearly 48 hours after doing that run, and I pulled up sore. I had a run in Sydney yesterday morning, along the harbour, and by the way, Sydney's freaking freezing. I stood on the corner when I went for a run yesterday, Thursday morning, and it felt like 4 degrees or something in the city — just windy, felt — I don't mean the temperature specifically, but it was cold. Anyway, I went for a run along

[39:21] there, I was just gummy. I hate sitting down as we sit here talking. It's the one thing about going from a lifetime of only being an athlete to now mixing the athlete stuff with a range of other stuff — sitting down just sucks the life out of you. Oh, you're back on the truck, that's good to hear. I am back on the truck, how far? The furthest I've run is 7

[39:51] kilometres. I'm back into run-walks, I'm three runs back in. After the decision to stop doing the marathon, I gave myself probably not quite two weeks but a week and a half of no running, just stopped thinking about it. This isn't anything to do with the physios I was seeing — Britt and Liam, who've been awesome at Gold Coast Physio — but I also gave myself a break from treatment, because

[40:22] Liam's been great giving me my rehab plans, and I had some needling done by Trent, but I also just took a break — the calf's fine, I can walk around on it, it's not hurting, I can ride my bike, I can go to the gym, I just can't run on it right now. Going back to physio for me right now, there was no real upside to it. Without the time constraint of the marathon on me, I just went, it's not costing me anything I need to fork out, but also I just don't need it,

[40:55] so I gave myself a couple of weeks off from physio appointments as well. And then the other morning I just went, let's go for a run-walk. I literally did two minutes on, one minute off, ten of them, felt great, ran a little under 5 K's, didn't feel anything — no pain. But I didn't run for more than 23, 24 minutes all up.

[41:27] Yeah, but it's still good if you didn't feel anything, because even when you get back into that type of thing, mentally you're waiting for it, waiting to feel it. Interestingly, I reckon the cadence — I was running at a very high cadence, because what Liam had been telling me, and what I'd learnt previously, is that high cadence can sometimes be beneficial for your calf. So I did that, and then the next run back was 3 minutes on, 1 minute walk/jog/walk.

[41:58] And then most recently I did a 5-minute-on, 1-minute-walk session, in between the 5 minutes. Now, because I've stopped thinking about the numbers of running — which was really interesting doing this run, because I've stopped thinking about splits and times and negative splitting and all that stuff — I was doing the first five-minute effort and my watch went off and said one kilometre in, and I went, oh, I just ran a K

[42:30] like an effort K, and I haven't run an effort K since before kunanyi. I haven't, in almost three months, run a kilometre interval effort. It was a very weird sensation — I go, oh, that was a kilometre interval I've just run. As I started to get through the rest of the session, I was like, oh, these are — I'm back running kilometre intervals. Sounds like you're enjoying it again, because you're not so fixated. Exactly, it was a happy meeting,

[43:02] nice to — for me, the time — I got to the end of the run and looked at the K splits and started to go, 'oh, that's not very fast.' But the moment during that run where the automatic 1K notification alert went off, I'm like, oh, this is fun, I'm back running again. When you do that run-walk stuff, you often find, once you're moving along a bit better, you're just trying to stay to that pace — I don't ever use alarms, and I find, oh shit, I was meant to run 5 but I ran 6 minutes, because you're just moving along and you start

[43:33] to forget about it. But it's cool. I think that's a good thing to be aware of — that goals, and having something to follow to try and achieve, is a great idea, but it's then very easy to get hung up on that, and it derails the idea of just going out and running sometimes. It's okay just to go out and run — even I'm the same, I want to still know how much I ran and put it on Strava or whatever else.

[44:03] But sometimes just leaving the watch there and not watching it while you're running is the best thing you can get out of it — or just head to a trail. Yeah, it was funny — the photographer, Paul, after we took those photos and I nearly drowned myself, nearly waterboarded myself for 45 minutes, asked me some questions because he wanted to use them for the caption. He was asking about marathon running, why do you do these, all that sort of stuff. One of the questions he asked me

[44:34] at the end was about being in the zone, when you find yourself in that fluid state of running. And I said, rarely — I think I said to him, I'm what you'd call an effort runner, Paul, none of this comes easy to me. I've had maybe half a dozen runs over my running career where I've gone, 'oh, I'm in the zone,' that flow state of running.

[45:05] Every run for me is an effort, I'm an effort runner, there's nothing fluid about the way I run, nothing efficient about it. So that idea of finding that flow state and fluidity is rare, I can't find that state often. But when I am enjoying running, even if it doesn't feel fluid or flowy, that's when running's best, when you're just enjoying it. 100%. Because when he was asking me these questions, I was thinking about going up those hills with you in Nerang.

[45:35] I am not flowing when I'm running behind you in Nerang, there's nothing flow about that. But when you're talking, and forgetting about the running a little bit — it's not flowing in the meditation sense, but it is flow in the sense that you're out there just running along and talking, and when you're talking to the point you're not thinking about the running, you're just doing it. I think music, as much as there are times when you don't want music going, when you just want to enjoy what's out there — but then music can also get you to that flow state where you just lock in, you're not even really listening

[46:06] to it, but you're running along. Hey, I've got a question for you — have you watched Mobland? I haven't watched it, I've heard a lot about it though — do yourself a favour. Tom Hardy is in it, good chat, talk about man crushes. I didn't think this is where we'd end up, but Tom Hardy — I don't think too many people could look at him and go 'I wouldn't want to be him.' He was a UFC fighter in one of his

[46:39] films, he fought against Joel Edgerton in a film called Warrior or something like that. Pierce Brosnan is in it too, and I'm sort of into it now as well, but it's the typical London gangster, Guy Ritchie thing — pretty sure Guy Ritchie directed or produced it, so it's kind of that old-school UK style. Do yourself a favour, go watch it. Dipping our toes into movies, yeah, just finished it off trying to get to sleep late one night.

[47:09] It's great, hadn't seen it, very good. Got a little local shout-out this week — 'Hey guys, this is Brad, I just completed my first ever trail race, the 15K in the Numinbah Valley, Gold Coast. I'd like to give a shout out to Steve at Trail Trips and Events, and Wild Earth, for putting on a great event. It's a well-guided course, heaps of volunteers on track, steep hills, mud, rocks and river crossings. I never would have heard about this event if it wasn't for your

[47:41] podcast, and you guys talking about the Nerang trails all the time made me start searching trail events on the Gold Coast a few episodes ago. A listener question about how to get into trail running — I can recommend the In the Raw event as it really caters for all abilities, thanks a lot.' I found Brad on Instagram — what a legend, In the Raw 15K race, Steve is awesome. That's your local trails, yeah, he's up through the

[48:11] Currumbin trails. Yeah. What Steve does with the trail scene is — how do we make sure the pioneers are rewarded, because that's getting people to their event, right? Doesn't that feel like a bit of a reward? I do, we spoke about it, someone goes and finds it, that's great,

[48:42] but I'm also conscious that as this bubble continues to grow, and this fascination and obsession with running in the community gets bigger and bigger, I hope I'm not saying it is happening, but I'm conscious that someone like Steve, who does Trail Trips and Events, I think it's called — I would hate that suddenly a better-resourced organisation, maybe a brand, comes in and

[49:13] swoops in on the goldmine that running is now presenting, and someone like Steve gets left on the wayside. I'm not saying it's going to happen, I don't think it will, but I think what Brad's shown is a perfect example — get out there and support them. What you can do is support them, get out there and find them, because yes, that does the trick, it puts on great races. I can tell you first-hand, right now especially, it ain't easy trying to

[49:44] put on events, it's not easy trying to run events in difficult locations. You spend the money, you shut down roads for races, you've got to deal with a lot of bureaucratic stuff, but once you get off track there's a whole range of other factors that come into running events, and Steve navigates all that. You've got to love it, amazingly, you've got to love it, you're not doing it for the cash. But he's still

[50:14] taking people to those locations, putting on the style of event that I think really has that point of difference. Definitely go and check it out. Thanks for the message, Brad — and again, if anybody out there wants a great way to send us feedback and get involved with the show, send us a voice memo. Shout out to my Defiance race partner Lindsay Laurie, he got second — he's flying again at the moment. Lindsay's a weapon, and I reckon if Lindsay had the Courtney Atkinson focus, he'd be an even bigger weapon.

[50:48] Lindsay's one of those annoying humans that's good at lots of things, isn't he. I think he won a junior K1 kayaking Australian championship, that's what I mean, annoyingly good at lots of things. Very good. All right, what have we got left, we've got time for any gear chat? I've got — actually, this listener question I'm interested in. Ryan, King of Armidale — Ryan's writing in, boys: with how popular running is becoming

[51:18] worldwide, do you think any additional running events could be added to the Olympics, and if so what would you add for it to be a success — would it be a standard type race, a backyard ultra, new road distances like a 30 or a 50, or even bring back the cross country? Well, we've talked about bringing the cross country back, and that's where I firmly sit. I've got a question for you, because earlier on in the episode we talked about what's impressive anymore — you said you had an answer for this. I said that

[51:50] going and doing a race is impressive. But when we talk about doing an Ironman, doing an ultra, what's impressive in endurance anymore, because everyone's doing such crazy stuff — when you take it to the Olympic level, do you ever think a long event, an ultra, could work at the Olympic Games? This probably goes for both running and Ironman in triathlon, because that's the argument in triathlon, always has been — you've got the Olympic distance, which runs for just

[52:21] under 2 hours, but you don't have the Ironman in the Olympic Games. Do you ever think an ultra or an Ironman could work in an Olympic environment? It could, but why — the attention span of the globe is shortening, it's becoming — we talked about the Coolangatta Gold earlier in this episode — everything's becoming shorter. Longer is not the solution, longer has a niche, but it's not the mainstream niche

[52:51] anymore. And I don't see a world where the Olympic ethos is changing — it's no longer just about faster, higher, stronger, that's still their motto, but it's changing to now be about sustainable legacy. You always hear the words around the Brisbane Olympic Games — what's the legacy, what's the legacy piece? It's not about just building

[53:21] legacy pieces for everything, now it's about sustainable legacy. So the Brisbane Olympic Games as an example — there's conversation going around about where the paddle sport events are going to happen. Redlands is approved for a new whitewater rafting facility, the only one in this country, when one already basically exists down in Penrith in the backyard of Jess and Noemie Fox — they're going to build a new one at Redlands for $20 million or whatever it's going to cost. Why, for a niche sport that only has a certain number of

[53:53] participants, why are we building that? And then there's talk about creating a new rowing facility in Rockhampton. Why — that's not a sustainable legacy, you're not going to make Rockhampton the centre of rowing in this country when Sydney already has world-class rowing facilities. So the sustainable legacy — trust me, I'm going to land the plane on this — it makes more sense for the Brisbane Olympics to host its paddling events down in Sydney.

[54:23] It'd be cool, but if you're talking about the Olympics having sustainable legacy, it makes more sense to have those things there. Now, back to what we were talking about — ultra or longer events ever going into the Olympic Games — how would you host one sustainably and feasibly for something that might go for five hours? It just draws everything out longer, makes everything more logistically difficult, and puts further strain on a host city and

[54:53] host venue, when not many people in host cities really want these Games anymore. And we've got the marathon — running, you've got the marathon, we talk about this every week, it's the tipping point where you run the 32K and then your legs fall off. It's long enough. The marathon should still be impressive — if we introduce more ultra things, the marathon becomes less impressive. It should still be impressive enough. Well, the marathon —

[55:23] that is the Olympic Games, right from day dot, the Olympic marathon, that's how it started, that's the biggest test to go as quick as possible over a distance. And in triathlon, I suppose it's a similar thing, a little bit shorter, you go now at 45, but it's a long way for anyone sitting there — for anyone who thinks it's just an Olympic distance —

[55:56] oh, here we go, fire up Courtney. You're talking triathlon here — or in running terms, well, it's just the 10K. You're running flat out for whatever it is for different people, 25, 35 minutes, whatever, that's a long way to run hard. Two or three hours for a marathon is a long way to run hard. You don't always have to make it longer for the sake of making things longer, because

[56:28] all you're doing is creating a point of difference. Here's our new T-shirt, right, we've never done merch, and I know we've got the Polar giveaway — let's make some merch, here's the merch idea, ready: 'Don't go longer, go harder.' Let's change the mentality around running — don't go longer, go harder, make it harder on yourself by working hard, don't go longer, go harder. Because as you were just talking about that, I remember when I signed up for my first triathlon, and honestly in my

[56:58] head I was thinking, how am I going to swim one-and-a-half K's, ride 40K, then run 10K. This year I'm doing number eleven, and in my head right now those distances don't scare me at all, I could cruise through that this afternoon if I wanted to — but could I go harder? Should I go harder, that's my point. You do the Noosa Triathlon, right, and then you're sitting in — I'll paint a picture — I'm sitting in my office, up on level ten in Brisbane city,

[57:29] in the Meriton building or something, and my colleague next to me and I say, 'I had a hard one at the weekend, did my PB at the Noosa Triathlon, two hours thirty-five.' 'Awesome, yeah, well I'm going to race the Australian Ironman this year.' And the person who's just done the Noosa goes, 'oh, you're an Ironman now,' automatically — I'd suggest the people doing the

[57:59] longer distance go, well that's the better thing, like, wow, you're doing that. But that person's just gone and, at a very, very good level, raced over two hours thirty-five and beaten their PB. What's more impressive — I'd actually argue it's the two hours, trying to improve yourself over a distance you're capable of. You don't always have to go longer to feel better. Go harder, not longer, go harder, not longer — In the Beginning podcast, which means we're going to start doing 20-minute episodes where we just

[58:29] yell at each other. There we go. Hey, don't forget, if you haven't already, comment and review and rate the podcast. We've got the H10 heart rate sensor, we've got the Polar Pacer running watch, we'll be giving those away this time next week. One more week to get your entries, review, share the podcast, and we'll see you next week. Yep, we'll see you next week.