EP 4 - WHO'S AUSTRALIA'S BEST KNOWN RUNNER?

[00:00] In the beginning, at four, we're back, ready to roll. How you doing, Court? I'm great, mate. It's been a pretty cruisy week, but let's start with you — what have you been up to this week? I've had a really interesting week trying to fit my exercise around my life. It's been an interesting mix — Noosa's still on the horizon for me, so I'm trying to spend time on the bike. But if it's not ideal conditions outside, I'm reluctant to get on the bike because I'm not a super confident rider.

[00:32] So if there's any rain around, I've got no interest in the bike. But mix that up with the long weekend — I worked at a function for the NRL Grand Final, and then on the Monday we had the opportunity, my family was heading down to Byron Bay, and it's like, I want to take the kids down and do that. So how do you fit in bike and run and all that sort of stuff? Well, they do call triathlon the widow maker.

[01:02] Have you heard that term? No. I think it's more Ironman triathlons — the fact that you have to do so much, three sports, instead of just running where you might be doing ten hours a week or whatever, to fit in the three sports and actually compete at a good level. Did you get no time with your family — is that where the widow maker term comes from? Did you know people you competed with over the years as a professional whose relationships went a bit rocky? Not that many, honestly — I don't think there were many I knew in the professional scene that went rocky.

[01:32] There's plenty of inter-sport relationships going on, definitely. Some went the distance, some didn't. Well, I'm not widowed just yet, but it's tricky fitting it all in. I ran this morning and a headwind will stop me so quickly — there's nothing worse. I don't know what it's like for you at the elite level, but for battlers like me at the amateur level, when you start out on a run, or your

[02:02] mid-session run, you turn and start running in a different direction, you hit a headwind, and there's nothing more demoralising. It sucks. I ran this morning and realised — I did the maths — I wasn't going to get a tailwind because I was running basically back home, so I was into that headwind for the rest of it. It sucks, I hated it. Anyway — same problem with point-to-point courses.

[02:32] Yeah, at least if you're going out and back, you know you'll get a tailwind one way. But the body's feeling pretty good — I was actually on time for my run group last weekend, within the four-minute window, though I still wasn't quite on time. Did they run seventy-five percent north? Yeah, they ran north instead of south of me, so I was within the four-minute window but still had to play catch-up a little. Feeling good for Noosa? Was this week productive? Probably a break-even week. A break-even week. A break-even week.

[03:02] I didn't get the brick session in that I wanted, but I'm planning one for this weekend — I'm going away, actually. Look, I'm feeling okay about Noosa. Put it this way — twelve months ago when I set my Noosa PB, I'm running better than I was then. I'm probably not swimming as well. What did you run at Noosa last year? I think my run time was about forty-six minutes. I collapsed off the bike last year, but I think I did a two-thirty-six overall.

[03:33] So I'm running better, my riding's probably on par, but my swimming's probably not as good as it was this time last year. Yeah — you get proper panic attacks out in that ocean, mate. But they're good targets — forty-six minutes in the run, we're going to improve there. This morning — it's a bit difficult to say 'our week' because we obviously chat to each other midweek — but I was out in the forest at Nerang on the trails this morning, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I felt like I had a bit of spring in my step.

[04:11] And I reckon that's got to do with hitting seventy K last week with a bit of riding thrown in — went from basically zero running to twenty-five K, then seventy. That's a red flag, a massive red flag. Well, that's a lot more than the ten percent increase you're meant to be doing, right? Sure, but the ten percent rule is just a rule of thumb — you know your body better than

[04:41] that, but I've been breaking my body a fair bit too at the moment. It was a great week though — I got away on the long weekend, probably the funnest bit of my week, out west, back on the motorbike. Not doing anything silly, just riding around a lot more, enjoying slower speeds with my son around the property. We went out to Warwick — my brother-in-law Andrew, you've met him before, around Movember — he and his wife have a property out there, so a bit of riding but also some good running.

[05:18] Out west it's kind of similar roads to Red Bull Race the Sun — the event I helped set up. We're on those dirt roads out the back in granite country, and it's just amazing running, no cars or anything. I took Andrew for a run and we were heading out, going point-to-point to get picked up by some cars out there. We got through about ten K, running, stopping at the gates to open and close them, and I was yabbering away.

[05:49] We ticked over ten K and he said to me, 'I'm a minute off my PB.' And I said, 'Oh mate, you should have let me know — I could have opened the gates for you and we could have kept going.' So we're definitely going to get him over his ten K PB. B-P-B, PB baby. It's been a long day, but we'll get there soon — I love seeing that when someone's so surprised. I was thinking about this because of some feedback from the earlier episodes of the podcast, and there's been heaps pouring in, which is great.

[06:22] To everybody out there who's listened to the first three, thank you. We appreciate it — we know it's an investment of your time, but we appreciate it, and we hope you're getting something out of it. One of my mates, a bit like me, played lots of footy growing up and was always a competent runner because of football but never really a runner — he messaged me after the third episode.

[06:52] He said, 'Mate, just want to let you know, I listened to episode three and I'm now back out on the run. You've motivated me to get back into it.' And I was thinking about that, because the idea of PBs — you see all this stuff on Instagram and Strava, but ultimately, at the moment for me, I've found myself really happy chasing PBs. I'm ignoring the times and speeds other people are running and riding.

[07:25] I'm really settling into the idea now of — can I beat my PB? Can I get a new PB in all these events I've got coming up, and just general park runs and that sort of stuff. The goal is what gives you the structure, right? It gives you the motivation to get out there and do it. Whether it's a PB or a goal of completing something, you can't keep the consistency or the motivation without a goal. So if you're out on a run listening to this, think about that.

[07:56] What are you going to do — right now, that's a question I'm asking myself. What's my goal at the moment? The first goal was just to get back running and get fit. Now I'm feeling good again, I've got a bit of spring back, and I need something to aim for. Park run is kind of tickling my mind at the moment, but we'll come to that in a minute. So — out there running, I've got my issue for the week. I was driving home from a property out west, along a dirt road, and I came up behind two cyclists.

[08:28] Being a lifetime cyclist myself, I slowed right down — share the road, there's going to be plenty of dust. I was behind them for about a minute and they weren't moving, and then I worked it out — both of them had headphones in. So here's the question — what's your take on riding, and we'll take it over to running as well, with headphones on the road? I'm assuming these annoy you.

[08:58] I ride with headphones, I run with headphones. Sometimes I ride without, sometimes I run without, but I do both with them at times. You ride with two, both in, on the road? On the quiet, I'm not going to pretend I don't do it. And here's what I'll say — when I ride with two headphones in, there's a part of me that knows I'm doing the wrong thing. I don't even know where to go from here.

[09:29] Tell me — explain to me, because the reason I say I know I'm doing the wrong thing is my wife thinks it's dangerous riding with two headphones in. A hundred percent, I think it's dangerous too. I'm on the side of one headphone — I mean, if you want to listen to us, listen to us — but whatever you're listening to, music or podcasts, it's great to have something on out there, but take one out, at least keep the right ear open in Australia, which hears the cars, hears something coming up behind you.

[10:02] If you're on the road, at least use the left-hand headphone. Same goes with running. Now here's where I differ — you're not seriously going to say people should only run with one headphone in? I run with two headphones all the time, if I'm on a fire road. But if you're in the forest on mountain bike trails or single track, same thing — at least take one out so you can hear what's coming up behind you. So pretty much, if I'm running on a fire road, I'm happy to have both in, because there's plenty of room for someone to get around you.

[10:35] But as soon as you're on single track and mountain bikers are around, give them at least a chance of getting around you. What happens if you run with those big stupid over-the-top influencer headphones? You can't run with only one of those in — that's a commitment, you've got the big bunnies on, you're stuck with both. That's a whole other conversation, running with them. If you can run with them, I'm pretty impressed — how do you run with them without sweating? Every time I see someone — mostly women — jogging in a pair of those, and I'm a sweater, I'd devalue those headphones within three

[11:19] kilometres. I don't understand how people can feel good running with those headphones — sure, they look good, but every time I see someone I think about what the inside of the headphones would look like after I ran with them. Speaking of heavy — I haven't tried them, but there are ones now that put the sound through your bones so you don't actually have anything in your ears.

[11:49] I'm currently using — what are they called — AirPod Pros. Noise-cancelling. Yeah, I've heard some people say they fall out when you sweat, but they're perfect for me. I used to run with JBirds — I've tried those too — which are a hundred percent bomb-proof and sweat-proof. If it was just for running, sound didn't matter, they were bomb-proof — I'd literally jump in the water after running and keep wearing them, they were fine. But to get back to it — we talk a lot about kit, gear and tech on this pod, and we've already started to dabble in shoes a bit, but headphones is

[12:28] another one. I tried the JBirds previously and couldn't get them to sit flush in my ear, but for whatever reason the AirPods sit beautifully. Back to your original point about headphones when riding bikes — I know it's the wrong thing to do, having both in. Next time I get on the bike, in the next couple of days, I'll commit to only putting the left-hand headphone in. We're going to make sure, next time we see your wife, we sort this one out.

[13:03] It's dangerous enough riding on the roads as it is. I could give you some weak excuses — I literally ride the same route every time, out and back, out Currumbin Valley Road, twenty K's out, turn around, forty K loop out and back. There's generally a pretty decent shoulder, the cars out there are very considerate of riders because there are so many of us, and I don't have my volume up that loud.

[13:34] Excuse after excuse, mate. Anyway — can we agree that in an ideal world, I'm all for music, but if you're on the road or on single trails, just take one out? I agree, we agree on that one. Quickly then — what about the path out the front here? That's open slather — overhead headphones, sure, wear whatever you want out there. Quickly, while we're talking about running and cycling etiquette, I'm a big waver.

[14:09] When I'm on the bike, if someone's coming the other way, I give the old two-finger salute off the handlebars, like you're driving in the country. I'm all for it. Similarly, if I'm going for a run — if it's peak hour down at Burleigh you can't do it — but if it's early morning and there aren't many people on the path, I'm pro the smile and the good morning. Hundred percent, hundred percent. There's nothing wrong with a little 'hey, how are you.'

[14:42] It could seem creepy, but I find that for the most part people are quite receptive — they smile back or wave back. But then you do get the odd person who's very much 'get out of my world, you're in my space.' On the trails though, I've never gone past someone who hasn't returned a good morning or a wave — it's a different vibe out on the trail. Well, if you're going to run head-on into someone on single track, it's pretty awkward not to say good day.

[15:13] True. On fire roads it's a bit hit or miss. But the biggest difference I notice is between cities — running the beach here on the Gold Coast compared to down in Sydney. Let's leave that for when I'm back down in Sydney next month, I'm back and forth a bit. Okay, give us a sense check on this — are people on the eastern or northern beaches in Sydney friendlier than here on the Gold Coast?

[15:45] This might be something we could do going forward — vibe checks on the runs. I have a long-held theory that Queenslanders are the most proud — not so much athletic-related, but Queenslanders are by far the most patriotic about the state they're from, not even close. I'm a South Australian, de facto Queenslander, who lived in New South Wales for a long time.

[16:18] I've extended this theory — with State of Origin and the Olympic Games as examples, it's very much, yeah, we're representing Australia, but I'm still a Queenslander. New South Wales and Sydney in particular — and please don't yell at me for saying this — I don't think people care that much about being from New South Wales, that's just my general take. South Australians just want Victoria to take us seriously.

[16:52] Victorians are too cool to care about being from Victoria. Tasmanians just want people to remember them. Western Australia wants to be its own country. The NT just wants to be left alone. That's my broad blanket summary of every state and territory — but there's nuance between runners too. We're generalising here, but there's a certain style of Melbourne runners, there's a

[17:28] certain style of Sydney runners, and a very certain style of shirtless Queensland runners. Queensland runners for the most part don't wear shirts — the blokes, and the women don't wear much either. Melbourne runners, very much black on black, stylistic. It's true. People, feel free to comment and send us your feedback if you think this is a fairly accurate representation of where you run — you've probably just ruined our chances with anyone listening from Victoria.

[17:58] Talking about polls — I think that's the poll for the week, around how you feel running — is it friendlier running the beach in Sydney? But that brings us to the poll from last week, which caused a bit of traction — who's Australia's best known runner? Let's intro this.

[18:29] It came off the back of a conversation last week. I put it up initially on the podcast poll — you can put as many options as you want — but we didn't have many listeners because it was our first day. So we put it to Instagram and had four options. Here are the results — we'll go straight to them. We had Steve Moneghetti at 31%, sixty-two years old, Commonwealth Games gold medallist, and he still holds the City2Surf race record.

[19:02] That's crazy — and if we're being honest, it probably never gets broken because of the course changes they've made, though I've had conversations about some slight tweaks. Still, it's an insane record, and when you think about the runners who've raced since Steve set it, he absolutely deserves to be on the podium of best-known Aussie runners. So Steve on thirty-one percent, which nearly took out the win — but we had Nedd Brockman at thirty-four percent, three percent more, who took the win.

[19:37] Then we had Jess Hull — sorry, not Jess Trengove, Jess Hull — who had one of the performances of the Olympic Games, I'll let you intro that one. For those who don't know, we'll get to the Nedd situation because that's a really big talking point, and Mona's coming runner-up. The other person in the poll was Brett Robinson, who's the Australian marathon record holder.

[20:08] I'll intro Brett — he's currently the fastest runner in Australia over the distance that's selling out at the moment, the number one Australian marathoner. And on this poll, he's not considered one of Australia's best known runners, which I completely disagree with — I think it's an absolute disgrace, because he's the fastest runner.

[20:39] He's the fastest runner, performance-wise, in the event that most people are aspiring to. So what does that tell you about the aspirations behind the marathon — do you read anything into that? Because I do. I'm thinking, is this going to turn into a presidential debate like Harris and Trump where we start calling each other names, or is it going to be more like the VP

[21:10] debate — there was actually proper substance to that one. Because what it says to me about Brett, and you're right, he's the number one athlete at the distance all these people are signing up for in Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast and travelling internationally to compete in, is that the times Brett's running are basically a foreign language — what's his Australian record? Two-oh-seven. Two-oh-seven thirty-one.

[21:40] Most people can't compute what that even means, running that far that fast. So then the question becomes — why is Steve Moneghetti so well known, when Steve ran well under that too? It's an interesting question — I think Steve was probably the best runner in a kind of golden era for athletics, but it wasn't really a

[22:12] golden era for athletics, because you could argue right now is the golden era for Australian athletics — we've never been more competitive on the world stage. I can't tell you why Steve's more well known — well, I've got a theory. Before any listeners start going 'this is complete crap' — okay, a few hundred people chimed in and voted here, so as far as results go, we're talking about nine hundred and ninety-one people. That's a decent data set.

[22:42] In my world of marketing with larger organisations, that's the kind of quarterly sample size you'd use to look at how consumers think about brands. The one thing we're missing with this data — on Instagram we've got the quant data, but we don't have the breakdown of who voted, what age group they're from. If we had a younger age group voting, I'd assume Nedd Brockman would have been well ahead.

[23:12] Even further ahead. If we'd had an older audience voting, you'd have seen Steve Moneghetti well ahead. So we've got to consider we can't factor in the age group here. We also had people reach out asking, what about Jess Trengove? Stenson, and Peter Bol. I had another one I wanted to include — Annabelle Rumball, the female

[23:43] — I'd consider her the largest audience on Instagram that I know of for a female runner in Australia. I've never heard of her. When you put this down I'd never heard of her, and honestly, if this was my radio show and I'd seen that name on a piece of paper, I'd have gone and done some research so I could present that I knew about this person. And I thought, that's not what this is.

[24:13] I'm going to be honest, in the same way I told you I ride with both my headphones in, I don't know who that is. What does she run? Four hundred and fifty thousand followers. You want to be more relatable — she runs marathons, does daily runs. When she runs, I'd have to take a stab, but I'd guess three to four, four and a half hours. So I thought she was going to be like a Jess Hull, an Olympic-level

[24:46] we're talking purely about running influencers here. I'd never heard of her — that's really interesting, I'm going to have to look her up after this. Annabelle Rumball, I'll look her up. I spent a bit of time with her at City2Surf — we had a few different runners come along and hang out. In full transparency, there's some of the comments we got back.

[25:20] I got a few comments — literally vomit emojis. About Nedd? No, just about — it was just vomit emojis, and 'are you serious, this is sick.' Meaning, what are you doing? So I asked back, do you mean my poll is vomit, or the results are vomit? And it was categorically the results. Which is really interesting, because I think most people listening to this are probably aware of Nedd Brockman.

[25:50] Just quickly, because I don't want to gloss over it — Jess Hull, who was on this poll at seventeen percent, saying she was Australia's best known runner. As an aside — I think Jess Hull's silver medal at the Paris Olympics this year might go down as one of the most under-celebrated medals in Australian Olympic history, because yes, she didn't win, but she was running behind Faith Kipyegon, who won the women's fifteen hundred metres.

[26:22] Fifteen hundred metres itself isn't a glamour event, but Faith Kipyegon is the Usain Bolt of that event — she's the GOAT. And the fact that Jess Hull was stride for stride, chasing this woman home, is like an Aussie male dipping at the line with Usain.

[26:52] It's an incredible athletic achievement. In the lead-up she also broke a couple of records, and in terms of athlete timing, she entered those Paris Olympics nailing it — she peaked at exactly the right time and came away with a silver medal. And yet we walk away from these Olympic Games and most of the conversation and celebration is, rightfully so, about Jess and Ariarne Titmus and our

[27:22] swimmers and everyone else. I think Jess deserves that silver medal recognised. So here's where I've got a theory on the Steve Moneghetti thing — not that it's an issue, I love that Steve's come up here. We go out and run a Mona Fartlek, named after Steve Moneghetti — that's his session. No matter where you go in the country, someone will say they're going to do a Steve Moneghetti Fartlek this week. That's how strong his legacy is in Australian running. My theory is that back then, media controlled what you saw.

[27:55] There was no social media. Everyone who grew up in Steve Moneghetti's era saw him as purely the best-marketed athlete and the best runner of the time. He was the Mars Bar ad guy, I'm pretty sure — he was across all our marketing up to the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games gold medallist. That's all we knew, we were fed by the media. Now times have changed. What we're seeing from this result is it's still about the people making the most noise, but the media environment has changed.

[28:29] Now it's about social media, and who makes the most noise on it, and that comes down to marketing. Just like Steve — it was marketing in his day plus performance. I believe now it's mostly about marketing, and you can tell your story any way you want, and maybe it resonates even better with an audience who can relate to it every day. So I'd argue, talking about Nedd Brockman, his run across Australia was way more appealing to what he's trying to do now around breaking records and trying to ratify himself as a

[29:08] runner, because it gets into people's imagination — running across Australia, you understand that. Whether he broke the record or not, people just saw him run across Australia, and he's a tradie — his marketing team, hopefully they won marketing team of the year, because they deserve it, it was absolutely crazy. But where I sit is that recognition should be going to Brett Robinson.

[29:41] We should aspire to, or at least understand and know, our best runners — and those are the fastest ones. But whose responsibility is that? Is it Brett's to become more engaging as a marketing athlete, to up his marketing game? Or do we need to look at ourselves and go find the real gritty stuff, ignoring the fluff, as far as runners are concerned?

[30:16] I honestly don't have the answer — if I did, I'd be doing it myself. But what I do know from experience is that if you're Jess or Brett, or even Peter Bol — Jess and Peter Bol came up from the audience — I'd argue those two have had noise around them in the past two years, so they'd be considered among the best known, or at least they'd make it into the poll.

[30:48] Like, you should have these guys in the poll — because they've actually had noise around them, but not for running, outside noise. So they're known because of noise, and this is what's happening these days. It's not about performance, it's about noise, and if you can make noise any way possible, that's what's winning the marketing game today. The internet — that's behaviour, that's just how it is. And you can choose to play the game.

[31:22] If you want to, these are the rules of the game — I'm not saying it's right, but if you want to play, this is what you sign up for. To go off on a slight tangent — I'm not sure how across NIL you are, the American college sports system, where previously these athletes earned no money. Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Shaq — I just named basketballers, but all of them generated tens, hundreds of millions of dollars over the years for their colleges, who merchandised

[32:02] and monetised these athletes who were getting paid nothing. In recent times they've introduced rules which now allow these athletes, rightfully in my opinion, to earn money because of the sports they're playing at collegiate level. So now there's a gymnast at LSU by the name of Livvy Dunne, or Olivia Dunne, who's a multi, multi, multi-millionaire

[32:33] now. She's not the best gymnast on the planet — she's a Division One gymnast with LSU, a very good gymnast, probably not the best the US has to offer, but probably the richest gymnast on the planet because of all this. Is that right or wrong? It is what it is, and if you want to play the game — but where I was going, and I agree, is if you're dedicating every second to performance,

[33:11] your day is about training and recovery, and unless you've got an amazing team around you, which costs money, how can you put in the same effort as someone whose number one goal is to make noise by being a content creator?

[33:47] Whereas Brett, and I'm sure Jess, are doing everything they possibly can to perform at their best. It's not a level playing field in that sense, for what you want to achieve, and that comes down to the individual athlete. It's fascinating, because as we talked about last episode, it's fairly recent that there's a lot more money available in this space to people.

[34:19] And I say people because some organisations with a marketing spend are going to the elite athletes, the best of the best, and giving them cash. But most of them, I'd say, are looking for the noisiest, not the best — the noisiest. You mentioned Nedd — there's a catch-22 to it, because I know for a fact he's copping unbelievable levels of hate for what he's doing.

[34:51] Because he's making a lot of noise, as you refer to it, with this running thing. I agree with you, the run across Australia captured the imagination. There's a benevolent side to what Nedd's doing — he's raised millions of dollars for homelessness — but he's honest about it, saying that's not the reason he did it, the reason was to challenge himself. The homelessness is the secondary reason. Here's a question for you, since you've mentioned you know Nedd —

[35:24] have you personally met him? No, never. I'm probably more on the side of the performance athletes — I skew performance, you skew noisy. That's true, we can at least agree on that. Now I've lost my train — I was talking about Nedd and the levels of hate he's receiving. My question was, you said it's not about the running, it's about everything else, or is it about the running?

[35:59] So why not do it in a race? Why doesn't he challenge himself within a race? That's a good question. I know a guy who I met through Red Bull Race the Sun, the twenty-four hour race I helped create — last week there was the Australian Six Day Ultra Championships on, from my understanding.

[36:32] His name's Blaine Burke, and he won it — going for a world record. Eight hundred and fifty-five point six kilometres in six days to win, so he didn't quite get the world record. Say those numbers again — eight hundred and fifty-five point six kilometres in six days. Is that similar to what Nedd's running? At time of recording, that's roughly around where Nedd is on his sixth session.

[37:04] So I'm just clicking in here — five hundred people are interested. Whereas, at time of recording, Nedd's live feed on TikTok, streaming himself running this at Sydney Olympic Athletics Track, has had over a million views. Over a million. So my question again, when we're talking about noise and motivation —

[37:34] why not go and do it in a race? Costa Cosie's two hundred — these are the main events, though it's not my area, ultra running. But if you asked ultra runners what the core events are in Australia, who to look to, where the best events for ultra running are, these would be in the conversation. So why not go and run one? It's a good question.

[38:04] I'd love to have Nedd on the show, because I think there are some really interesting questions we could ask him — only Nedd can answer that. If I had to hypothesise why he doesn't do it and does it the way he does, it's because of what he did with the Australia run — he's now put himself in a position where he doesn't have to go into a race. He can do this at a running track in Sydney and create more noise, continuing to build a platform for himself to do whatever he wants.

[38:43] To take a step back — there'll be people listening to this conversation who are lawyers, accountants, mechanics, nurses, teachers, whatever. If you're on a career path you love, generally what you want to do is keep setting yourself up so you can explore that path the way you want to.

[39:13] That doesn't necessarily mean constantly climbing to the next level — it might mean heading into a specific field within your industry. Nedd, in my opinion, because of that run across Australia, has put himself in a position where he doesn't have to race if he doesn't want to. He can decide, 'I want to see if I can break that record,' and do it on the stage of his choosing, with the brands of his choosing behind him and the support of his choosing.

[39:46] And raise more money for the charity of his choosing. He's put himself in that position — one most of us might never get to, professionally or athletically. And I'll be honest, there's probably a level of jealousy on the performance side, thinking, this guy's out there running, eclipsing everything else we're doing, and we're the runners. I get both sides of it — it's such a polarising thing.

[40:20] The good thing is everyone's running. We talked about parkrun a few weeks back, we talked about the Hello Sport boys, we talk about Nedd — I don't know if we need as much negativity around any of this as we get, but how good is it that these people, in their own ways, are bringing thousands of people into the world of running? I love it. Jess and Brett, the best runners.

[40:51] Steve's the legend he is, and Nedd's the runner for the everyday punter. And you've done some — what were those, the two brothers from Melbourne who ran — one of the Lamb brothers, same sort of thing, making up challenges, turning up in the middle of Australia with people walking up going, 'what are you doing here?' Again, they've created a world for themselves where they can go and do stuff.

[41:22] I feel like you've taken the debate and you're kind of winning here. I'm staying strong — like I said, Jess and Brett are the runners, three of these are runners, one is the runner for the punters, that's my take. Shout out to Luke O'Shea, who you might know a bit — I used to run with him in Sydney. He messaged me after that poll went up, he's a really good athlete himself, not to your extent, but much better than me.

[41:56] He also used to work with you both in a marketing capacity, and now takes amazing photographs for different brands. When that poll went up, his reaction was — Nedd's not a runner like these other three, Nedd's not a runner like Jess, Mona's and Brett — but he predicted Nedd would end up the most well-known of the three, because he gets the marketing-noise side of it. Let's leave it there, because we can agree on that.

[42:28] We'll agree on that. I'm going to pivot — still on the marathon topic, around Mona's, there was an article I read on a website called Physiologically Speaking, we'll put it in the show notes if anyone wants a look. It's headlined something like — running or hard exercise can't prevent ageing, but it can slow the ageing process if you start with a higher aerobic base when you're younger.

[43:06] Say that again for us. Running can't prevent ageing, but it can slow the ageing process because starting younger gives you a higher aerobic base. Think of two people — someone training really hard, their heart and lungs start from a higher baseline compared to average, and they still degrade over time as they age, but you can't stop ageing, you can give yourself a head start.

[43:37] That's the crux of the article. What I loved was that the data comes from research on Derek Clayton, one of the most elite athletes we've had — an Australian who held the marathon world record, breaking it with two-oh-nine-thirty-six in nineteen sixty-seven, almost sixty years ago. To put that in perspective, we just talked about Brett, the current Australian record holder, at two-oh-seven-thirty-one.

[44:11] Two-oh-seven-thirty-one — and Derek broke the world record in nineteen sixty-seven at two-oh-nine-thirty-six. Forget the shoe conversation, this is crazy. He then went on to break it again, taking it down to two-oh-eight-thirty-three, which lasted for twelve years. This article goes through data they've got on him from when he was twenty-two, VO2 data when he was forty-seven, and he kept training very hard.

[44:45] Don't quote me on the exact numbers, I'm paraphrasing — but at forty-seven, and then again when he was around seventy, they've got this highly trained, world's-best elite athlete with data points on him across time. What they found, in summary, is that when he was forty-seven, his VO2 was hardly less than it was at twenty-two.

[45:18] He was obviously highly trained through that whole period, but it didn't prevent the ageing — it didn't slow the ageing process itself, but by starting with a much higher aerobic reserve, he drew from that. This is a finding everyone should really take on board — nobody's immune to ageing, but the healthier and fitter we are aerobically in midlife, the better off we'll be later in life.

[45:50] No matter what age, if you have that reserve of aerobic fitness, muscle mass and strength, the best time to start was yesterday. I love it — it's not rocket science, right? But what's interesting is —

[46:21] it's not groundbreaking in that way, but it's groundbreaking that they've now got the data to prove it. We can't slow the ageing itself — I was disappointed, I thought everything I was doing would slow ageing, but it's really just giving you a head start. The one thing that came out in the article, which isn't scary exactly, is that highly trained aerobic athletes at a really high level actually change the shape of their heart. Interesting you mention that.

[46:51] Because as you were talking, I remembered something my mum said years ago — around when I'd just started getting into longer runs, like after UTA 50. She said, 'Well, your heart's only got so many beats in it.' And I had another friend try to tell me long runs were bad for me — maybe there are some case studies where running really long for a long time affects people.

[47:25] But it can't be worse than the diets a lot of people live by Monday to Friday, you know what I mean — there's a happy medium in there somewhere. What we're talking about is the heart remodelling itself through extreme aerobic exercise — I know I've got this myself, an enlarged heart, athlete's heart they call it. I'm no doctor, so I won't try to diagnose it properly, but

[47:55] someone will know the term — big heart syndrome. I've got a big heart, mate, a huge ticker. There are trade-offs to be made, but what I'm saying is that small risk is far outweighed by the benefits of being fit as you head into those middle years — you'll come off a lot better. I agree.

[48:25] I agree. And as someone with kids now, a bit younger than yours — significantly younger — the ability to keep up with your kids is a huge motivator for me. And I don't mean that in the 'I just want to be able to play with my kids' sense, I mean I actually want to keep pace with them, be able to — do you want to keep pace or beat your kids? Hello?

[48:55] I want to beat my kids for as long as I can. They're at that delicate age now where you have to let them win sometimes, or you get the dummy spits — my daughter's eight, my son's four. My daughter's a bit past it now, but my son very much wants to race, and if he beats me, watch out. It's more fun with him, hoping I can still get the better of it. From a — I've talked a bit about skateboarding — my kids have gone past me skateboarding, and now I want to buy a skateboard to keep up.

[49:26] I used to look at people my age when I was a teenager and think, that's so old. And now I don't feel old, and I'm excited to see how long I can keep feeling not old for. Well, I'm older than you, mate, and you're out there jumping dirt bikes. Yeah, yeah.

[49:57] The one thing — well, not really. When you talk about dirt bikes, I'm your seven-to-eight-minute-per-K runner. That's how I feel on a dirt bike. I grew up in triathlon, road biking for twenty years — but pre social media, we didn't grow up wheelieing our road bikes. I didn't grow up on a BMX, so I never learned to jump, I don't feel comfortable in the air.

[50:36] I'm being honest. But that same five-K-runner feeling we talk about, that's me on a dirt bike, watching videos going, how the hell are they doing that? All I want is to be able to jump a hundred feet. But doesn't that — like you said at the start today, your fitness has come back, you're feeling more comfortable and it's come back pretty quick — so you're now thinking, what am I going to shoot for, what am I going to challenge myself with?

[51:08] That dirt bike attitude, that feeling you've got — doesn't that make you feel awesome? I know you say you're so far back, but don't you feel excited about the prospect of going from a seven-minute-per-K runner down to six, down to five? All of your potential on the dirt bike is still ahead of you. And I don't mean to get all airy-fairy motivational, but — let's definitely not do that. But I think, for a lot of people out there listening right now, running, they're at the beginning of their running life.

[51:47] We all have that area — for me it's a hobby, but we all have somewhere we want to start and achieve something. My goal is to be able to jump a certain distance — how far do you want me to jump? Let's just get off the ground properly first, then we'll talk about how far. My goal originally when I got the bike was actually to get out and race. And after — go and race?

[52:17] I wanted to be racing by the end of the year, and I thought I would be. The reality is I had some accidents, and my new reality is I just love the feeling and want to enjoy it, like a lot of people probably do. That's not my goal now — my goal is to get out there and enjoy it, and if I can go through the process and eventually handle it well enough to race, hell yeah. It's the same for a lot of people with running — the average parkrunner, or if you're just going into the marathon.

[52:51] I understand — I've been talking a lot about performance, I understand. This is just you and I talking, we're friends, so I can say this — you're being a coward, Courtney, about the idea of racing. I say that jokingly, but don't quit so easily on the idea of racing these dirt bikes.

[53:23] I imagine why you got to where you got to is because you set those goals. Yes, but when you're running and get injured, you might get a soft tissue injury and take some time off. When you crash one of these things — I don't know if you've ever watched it on YouTube, but things can go wrong pretty badly, and it's not a quick fix. If there are any dirt bike riders listening who are shouting 'shut up, Liam, you don't know what you're talking about' — you're right, I don't. We'll get a dirt bike rider on for sure.

[53:54] Because, talking about motorsport athletes for a moment — out of all the different sports I get to be involved with over the years, motorsport athletes are the closest thing I've found to us endurance athletes, in terms of training, fitness levels, and what they get to do. Whether it's cars or bikes, they don't actually get to spend a lot of time doing the specific activity.

[54:25] So they've got to be fit in other ways — a lot of them run, mountain bike, a whole range of things, and I've been lucky enough to train with some of them and see it firsthand — some of the fittest guys. I run in the same running group as Will Davison, two-time Bathurst winner, one of the great people, and his wife Reeve is an incredible athlete in her own right, and Tim Slade — Tim Slade's a weapon as a runner. All these guys turn up to Noosa to race.

[54:56] And they all race — Jamie Whincup was the same, they'll all turn up and race within two hours to two hours twenty as a guide. They're seriously fit. We'll get some of them on, because I think Drive to Survive has opened the gateway for people to be interested in the lives of motorsport athletes, or at least the casual observer — motorsport fans have always been interested, but the casual observer is now suddenly a bit more

[55:26] interested in motorsport because of Drive to Survive. It's like — who wouldn't want to be a race car driver? Because it's noisier. So, have we got time for one more? I'm going to throw this at you — we want to talk about topics that matter to runners, give information to runners, and not just runners, endurance and fitness generally.

[55:58] So I'm going to ask us both the same question — if there are three events in Australia right now you'd say you must do, what are they? You could have experienced any of these. This isn't about us, it's throwing out there what are the three endurance events in Australia right now — city2surf counts as an endurance event for me, absolutely. What are the three endurance events in Australia you'd want to do, or if someone asked you, you'd say go and do these three.

[56:32] I'm putting you on the spot here — I'll give you three I've done. There's plenty I want to do that I don't know enough about to speak to, so let's do that next week instead, the ones we haven't done. For now, let's go with events we've done. For people out there, combining the experience of the event, everything around it, and the feeling of completion at the

[57:08] end. Noosa Triathlon — it's one of the great weekends on the Australian fitness calendar, the vibe up there is amazing, there's just an energy about that place at that time of year. Noosa Triathlon has to be on your list. For a running event, I'll say City2Surf — again, the environment matters.

[57:38] The vibe at the start line, for those who haven't done it, is akin to a rock concert — like standing waiting for the main act at the Big Day Out back in the day, that nervous energy with thousands of people standing in the middle of Sydney CBD. The run itself is genuinely challenging for an average runner, and as a goal if you've never done it before, try not to walk up the hill —

[58:17] that's difficult, it's hard not to stop and reduce to a walk up Heartbreak Hill. It's called Heartbreak Hill for a reason, a nasty hill, and the race is fourteen K's long. You might think fourteen K's, I could run that easily, but people have always said to me it's more like training for a half marathon because that hill is taxing beyond belief. And then you finish at Bondi Beach.

[58:47] There are ninety thousand people there. And the rest of your day, since you start first thing in the morning, is an unbelievable party in Bondi. Why wouldn't you want to be part of that? Last one I'll put in there, and I'd almost put this one top, because it's a team event, and I've only done it once, with my best mate — and two, it took me somewhere I'd never been geographically, up to Mission Beach in Queensland.

[59:20] I know where you're going with this one. At the end of day one — because it's a multi-day event — I was as exhausted from exercise as I've ever been. I've played football, run marathons, done lots of different types of exercise over my life, and at the end of day one of Red Bull Defiance, it was a level of exhaustion I'd never felt before, and what made it worse was knowing there was another day coming.

[59:50] Red Bull Defiance at Mission Beach — this is where you and I first got to know each other, in the lead-up and at the event itself. I did it with my best mate Ed, I'm guessing it was around 2022. Twenty twenty-two, yeah. I still look back — the bag we had to pack everything into is essentially still my gym bag, and every time I use it there's a weird sense of pride that I earned it, because I raced that event.

[01:00:25] My mate Ed and I — he's got the endurance bug completely now — we still laugh about moments from that race, like how on day one I was pushing him up hills during the trail run because it had rained so much, and then on day two, with five K's left running down the beach, I started cramping for the first time, and he'd left the salt tablets back at the last checkpoint. That was our only real hiccup, but so many amazing memories. If you can ever find a way to do that race with a friend, do it.

[01:01:01] Make it happen, because it's incredible. That's music to my ears. Red Bull Defiance was a big part of — I raced it three times myself and had a fair hand in getting it up and running here in Australia. For those who don't know — two-day adventure race, the first hour and a half was white water rafting, though the course was set rather than navigated yourself, which makes it a little more

[01:01:31] approachable for everyone to have a go. An hour and a half white water rafting to start the race, down grade four rapids, everyone bumping into each other, then a hard, muddy trail run. The next day you get out of the rainforest at Tully and you're out on the reef at Dunk Island. Actually, I want to go back, because in our year a monster storm rolled in and they had to decide we wouldn't paddle out to Dunk and run around it, so they

[01:02:03] changed the course to a shorter paddle and a different run — there's some unfinished business there. Bad news on that one though — Red Bull Defiance doesn't exist any more, it's on hiatus. But I agree with you, it was one of the great things. I'll sub in Coast to Coast in New Zealand for your Red Bull Defiance pick — it's not in Australia, but if I had to pick a fourth, that's where I'd go.

[01:02:38] In New Zealand, you literally start on the west coast, go up over the range with riding, trail running, kayaking and riding again, and end up on the east coast in one day, or two if you're doing it as a tandem. If you want that experience right now, that's where you'd go. I'll be quick, because I've rattled on — I agree with you on the first two.

[01:03:08] Noosa and City2Surf, the big events in Australia to experience for endurance. The common theme is great parties — they're more than just events, they're experiences. For the third, I'd pick a major marathon, but I haven't done one so I can't add it to my list, so I'll go with something more unique.

[01:03:38] The Larapinta Stage Race. I've heard of the Larapinta Trail, but not much beyond that — there are a few options. The Larapinta Trail is out in the West MacDonnells outside Alice Springs, roughly two hundred and twenty-six K's give or take, going through gorges, rocky escarpments, typical outback, amazing country. There's a race there — I think they call it the Monster, someone will correct me — where they do

[01:04:13] the whole trail in one race, an ultra. There's also a company run by John Jacoby that puts on a stage race over four days out there, where instead of running the whole thing including the boring bits, you do the best parts of the Larapinta Trail each day — it's a really famous hiking trail. One of the days finishes at Serpentine Gorge, where you get to jump in the water.

[01:04:44] Instead of needing to take on the full ultra challenge, this is literally the tourist version of running the Larapinta Trail, and it's great. If I went back to one event every year, that would be it. Really? Yep. So when you say you run the tourist version, how far are you actually running each day? You've got two options — the short course, don't quote me exactly, but something like fifteen to twenty-five K a day, or the long course, more like thirty to forty-five K, a

[01:05:22] big challenge each day. You start at a different spot each day — they bus you out from Alice Springs, one of the evenings you camp at Glen Helen Gorge, so you get the whole experience, but doing the best of the trails. So you might do a hundred K of the best trails instead of staying up all night doing it in one go. I've just looked it up — it's the West Macs Monster Trail Running Festival, the Larapinta Trail, and there's a range of events, starting with a five K.

[01:05:53] So it's a proper festival — there's two twenty-five K options, a sixty-five K, a hundred and twenty-eight K, and the full two hundred and thirty-one K. I'm not talking about the Monster — plenty of people listening would probably love to do that one, but I'm talking about the highlight version, the stage race. Larapinta Stage Race, running. I've also done the mountain bike version — no one would even think Alice Springs has some of the best single-track mountain biking

[01:06:23] in Australia. Really — hundreds of kilometres of trails out there. I did that last year as a training session in the lead-up to Red Bull Defiance. I wish Ed and I had done more training on the bikes, because we struggled at Defiance — I don't know if you remember, it was muddy and wet, and we basically pushed our bikes up every hill, didn't ride up a single one for that entire fifty-four K mountain bike leg. With that weather, it was one of the hardest two-day races.

[01:06:58] But let us know what you think — what are your events, what did we miss? For everybody out there, socially, because it's all about noise as we've learned today, you can find us on Instagram — In the Beginning, just search our names, we share the same handle. Because we rushed into this, we don't actually have an email or anything set up. If you want to let loose at us, or disagree with us, about

[01:07:38] who's Australia's best known runner, share it, and if it's not useful we'll ignore it — but we do want people to jump in and get involved, and as we've done a couple of times already, if it's useful and interesting, we'll bring it to the podcast. To everybody already listening — because you've heard one of the first three, thank you. We appreciate the continued support, we hope you're enjoying it and getting something out of it wherever you're listening. And the best thing, if you want to support us going forward, is to send it to somebody you think might be interested.

[01:08:09] Send it to someone who might be just starting their running journey, or someone a lot further along — whatever it is, just share the love. Get people involved, get people subscribing, and we'll keep bringing it to you each week. We'll see you next week.