> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # EP 42 - MARANOIA - URL: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ep-42-maranoia/ - Published: 2025-07-04T06:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-20T10:50:14.000Z - Description: Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on Gold Coast Marathon, UTA & ultras, Olympics & 2032 — recorded on the Gold Coast. - Author: Courtney Atkinson - Tags: Episodes, Main Feed, Gold Coast Marathon, Ultra Running, Olympics, Trail Running, #Import 2026-07-28 20:58 *Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on Gold Coast Marathon, UTA & ultras, Olympics & 2032 — recorded on the Gold Coast.* ## Listen Listen on [Spotify](https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/inthebeginningpodcast/episodes/EP-42---MARANOIA-e350n6q?ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-42-maranoia/id1772010786?i=1000715751474&uo=4&ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com). ## Full transcript Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps approximate. Hosts: Courtney Atkinson & Liam Flanagan. **Read the full transcript** \[00:00\] In the Beginning, episode 42, and we're back to the one-a-week schedule. Courtney, for the moment, we're going to do a special guest segment. We've got a note that came in this week — Liam's been back in the news. Keenan Jacobs sent this in and said, "I'm sorry Liam, but we have to talk about this." Hello, Liam Flanagan. Speaking of Caleb Steph, Bailey \[00:31\] Humphrey — he's just described that you don't wanna do this to Bailey Humphrey. Big contest, Bailey Humphrey Stan, this is a young man who the Giants will not want to start feeling himself, 'cause when he does, he's capable of anything. Jay Bolt, when he feels himself, he feels good. Wow, that's got — that's true. He's dealing with — I don't know what he's going on there, Liam Flanagan, but again, you knew what he meant. I burned. Did you? Yeah, not really actually. Speaking of knowing what he meant, \[01:01\] your mate again, Stevie J. Bill, then — yeah. This is Bernie. Bernie Vince, this — you're not more about this podcast than I do. They're your family, mate. This is from Triple M, this is Triple M footy, it's the Saturday Rub. Bernie Vince, former Adelaide Crow, Melbourne Demon, ripping bloke, he's on breakfast radio down in Adelaide, and he does — basically, I can't remember what the segment's called, but every Saturday he goes through and basically takes the absolute piss out of his fellow Triple M callers. "Bernie's Enough for the Week" — no, not "for the week," sorry, "Enough of the Week." I don't think I was \[01:32\] "Enough of the Week" — but yeah, "Enough of the Week" is when he basically goes and takes audio, mostly from radio but TV too, of when people stuff things up. What that was in reference to — I was down in Sydney, it was the GWS-Gold Coast game. Now, cards on the table, nothing if not honest with the In the Beginning family — I thought I was being cool. I thought I was using the slang the kids use when they \[02:02\] refer to "feeling themselves," as in feeling confident in themselves — that's the terminology right now. I used it on a station whose target demographic is 40-year-olds plus, so I probably didn't pick the right audience. And fair to say, Jude Bolton and Brad Seymour, who were calling the game with me, did not support me whatsoever. I was called out on the spot — Jude and Brad both turned and looked at me and said, "What are you talking about?" And I actually played that to Bailey Humphrey. \[02:32\] Bailey Humphrey came into the studio after that game and I played that audio to him, and even he reacted — he said, "I don't think you can say that on radio." So look, part of being a footy commentator is you're always updating your phrase book, always learning new words, finding new ways to describe things. That one's gone, deleted — don't say that to your kids, that's been deleted from my phrase book. So thank you, \[03:03\] let's leave that. Thank you, Bernie. Thank you to who sent that in — Keenan Jacobs. Thank you, Keenan, you've made your point, you're not gonna get away with any more of it. It was a good call though, that was a great game. And then I've called since then — I called the Suns' win over Melbourne. That was Sunny's back — I bumped into the high performance boss, Riggers, Alex Rigby. I think he was just relieved that they got a win, frankly. Now, the reason I thought you \[03:35\] were going to say I was in the news is because I've been hit up by a few people saying, "What have you done now?" Well, I went to collect my bib, went to get ready for the Gold Coast Marathon, picked up my official marathon — oh, we finally got the photos up. No, I'm hastily racing through the marathon programme so I can get to the page and read it. It's a big news week though. Here we go. Well, you're not running the marathon, but this is what I wanted to show you. \[04:06\] OK, I won't ruin it just yet then. The commentary team — yes, for the Triple M Gold Coast Marathon — you mean the ASICS Gold Coast Marathon? I'm still in radio, don't say that. But don't say that either, talk about saying things you shouldn't. I'll give you a tip, a commentary tip for the finish line — Liam's gonna be calling you across the line, both the half and the full. And we don't want to hear it's a Triple M thing, make sure you call it \[04:36\] the correct name — I'm gonna have to take, speaking of deleting things from my brain, Southern Cross University 10K. Yes, the ASICS Gold Coast Marathon, ASICS Gold Coast Half? No, it's ASICS Gold Coast Marathon for sure, I don't know what the half is officially, I'm assuming the half's ASICS as well. If you haven't picked up your marathon handbook already, I'm in there — I'm gonna be working alongside the great Pete Murray, which I'm excited about, the voice of Ironman in Australia, of course Noosa Tri, across \[05:07\] the line, heaps of stuff. So I liked the little sledge in there, delivered by somebody at EMQ who said, well, Liam had planned to be on the start line as a runner this year and an untimely injury saw him sidelined. Hey, I'm a big believer things are meant to be, Liam — and this is for the podcast, that's it, there's a shout-out at the end of the podcast in there too. So look, not going to be running, but really excited that Saturday and Sunday \[05:38\] I'm gonna get to — because I've never experienced that finish line vibe as a non-runner, so I'm really looking forward to being there both days. I will say this — if you're listening to this in time before you finish, if you're running the half, the 10K, whatever it is, or the full on the Sunday, come find me on the line. Come say g'day, tell me your name, introduce yourself — I'll pump up as many of you as I can. I want to give special love to all the In the Beginning Podcast listeners as they finish their \[06:08\] races. So if you see me, come find me — I'll be the short one, there'll be Pete, nice tall fella, good-looking rooster with a deep voice, and I'll be the other one, just waving till you're having the morning beers, mate. I bumped into Bronte this morning and she just got her corporate pass into that little section. I am gonna be watching, yeah, we'll be up above watching you at work, mate. And I don't know how I like that — plenty of pump, we're gonna be pumping the podcast for the whole weekend. \[06:38\] So yeah, we are — enough bagging me out, frankly, I wasn't ready for either of those, I've had my fair share of stick these past few weeks. Well, let's talk some running news, what's going on? The big one is Western States — hopefully most runners have heard of Western States, even the roadrunners and marathoners who listen to us. It's the oldest 100-mile trail race in the world, apparently, if you go by their website. It's the \[07:09\] one — I know my friends who are good runners, really good runners, Anna, who's a great trail runner out of Noosa — that's the one she keeps trying to qualify for every year. Everyone wants to get in, so there's limited spots, even the elites have to come close to winning a major 100-mile race just to get a ticket to it. So it's not even easy for the elites to get there, but it actually makes sense that everyone watches Western States — we've talked a lot about how a race becomes \[07:40\] iconic. It's the oldest race — that probably helps, and it's across a beautiful location, everything else. It's 161 kilometres in our terms, 5,500 metres of vert and 7,000 metres of descent. Now, the winner this year of the men's — for the moment, can you get the results up for the women as well, so we can make sure we cover that. \[08:11\] But it's more about just the state of running I wanted to focus on here. So Caleb Olson is a Nike runner — he won the event in 14 hours and 11 minutes, flying for 100 and 60-odd kilometres, crazy. But what I want to call out is Kilian Jornet, probably one of the best known, not just runners but endurance athletes on the planet — he came in third. And there was another guy in the race too, been doing a heap of YouTube stuff called Mountain — he goes by the handle Mountain Roach on Instagram and YouTube \[08:43\] and all of that. It's interesting, the difference — Caleb Olson, who won and runs for Nike, has a following of about 11.5 thousand people, compared to Kilian, who has 1.8 million. Let's look up the numbers. But what's crazy — and this is why I love trail — is it's still such an area where you can still find people, runners can still \[09:14\] go there. And Caleb had — I think he's had one of the best debuts, is that his first? No, it wasn't, but I think he's had the quickest time for a debut ever. But you know, I'm just surprised, like the winner of Western States, the biggest trail race in the world, with a lot of people watching it — this is just how hard it is in running, someone we haven't heard of. Really? Well, I'd definitely heard of him \[09:44\] because I've seen him — we'll get to the shoes a bit later on, but there's a lot of — let's say prototype shoes being run. A lot of the top ten were running in shoes specially made for them for that event, which is really interesting, because in marathons we see a few prototypes, but they normally release them prior to the event. Trail's a bit different — they're all running certain prototypes, the majority of them. Yeah, we'll go through that later in the episode if you hang around. \[10:15\] Did you want the women's results? I do. So the women's — same course. Just for context, Abby finished — I think it was the fourth fastest women's time ever, she came in at 16 hours, 37, about two hours and 20 minutes behind the men's winner. I've been reading up on Abby quickly — basically it was almost a wire-to-wire win for her, she sounds like she dominated for most of the race, but she's been a really good 100K runner for the last five or six years \[10:49\] and this was her first big 100-mile win. So well done — I mean, just think 14 hours, 16 hours, it's crazy fast. These are quick, it's one of the more runnable courses and quicker ones. But yeah — no Aussies in the top ten. No, but shout out to Dan Jones — we've talked about Dan on here before, around — he was the guy I was telling the story about, rappelling off the bridge, that's right, interesting to know. \[11:19\] I just — and this is apropos of nothing — I know it's a race that takes place in America and the US dominates it, I would've thought the Europeans might have been more dominant in the trail ones, but in the men's race — I think you'll find, and I know I'm talking out of turn here, but Western States is the big one for the US, whereas UTMB is the big one for the Europeans. Definitely more US guys and girls do really well at UTMB too, but it'll be more \[11:50\] European-driven. Cool. Now, did you watch Breaking4? Yes. Did you watch it live or on replay? I watched a replay. What did you make of it? It's a good look, I get where they're going, I get what they're trying to do — we've talked about it here before, they're trying to take running mainstream. Quick catch-up: Faith Kipyegon, the women's GOAT middle-distance runner, copying the mould set by Eliud Kipchoge when Nike tried \[12:20\] to break two hours with him over the marathon — tailored everything to get him to achieve it. They did the same for Faith Kipyegon, in the hope of making her the first female to ever run a sub-4-minute mile. She was on pace for three laps arguably, then dropped 5-6 seconds on the last lap, just didn't have it. Look, I was more focused on the run itself — it's such a small part, because when you're running only — what did she do in the end, four-oh-six? It was the fastest ever mile time by a female athlete, ever heard of. \[12:51\] She has the world record of four-oh-seven, so still a success by that measure, yes. But what I was interested in is the actual show — I watched the pre-show on Prime. What did you think? I watched episode one, which we talked about the other day, which explained all the technology and everything and the training. Then I watched the pre-show in the lead-up to her run, and there was probably a good 40 minutes of it — they brought in, I think \[13:21\] the main host was an American female sports reporter, from the media, I think, and she was doing a great job. They had everyone represented — Carl Lewis, great, amazing, I'd love to see him on, that was special. Especially as a sprinter, but he still has a lot to say about athletics. It just didn't work for me. What about it didn't work? It's just clunky, how do you \[13:54\] — I would have rather seen it packaged up as the actual first episode of her training and the technology and everything else, packaged as one one-hour special, instead of trying to break it out into three parts where you have to watch a pre-show and then the show. It just kept trying to build it up for 40 minutes before the actual event. I think if you're going to watch something live and you want to be there, you need to get to the main event quicker than that. It was just too long. \[14:24\] I didn't see it — I only watched the race, just the replay of the entry into it, so I don't quite have that perspective on it as a product because I didn't have to sit through all that. You just fast-forwarded it? No, but the replay only gave me the bit when Faith came out onto the track and when the pacers came out onto the track — it didn't give me all the pre stuff. So I actually just got to see the attempt, that's all I saw, so I don't have that view of \[14:56\] it. I really thought it was great — I loved seeing Stewart McSweyn out there representing Australia as one of the pacers, and to me it looked like a really exciting, well-commentated run, talking about the lights that would keep your pace. I really enjoyed the run itself, 100%. I just think it was too long to get there — them trying to fill time to keep you watching for a whole hour, whereas I think instead of taking three one-hour episodes, if they'd just condensed it, not \[15:28\] being greedy, into one great package — half an hour of the lead-up into the race, bang, gone, done. If you look at it from that perspective — this wasn't set up to be a money-making exercise for Nike, Nike doesn't need to create things like this to make more money. Well, I think the purpose of doing it is to make more money. Do you think? What money is there to be made aside from selling the TV rights, selling shoes? I don't reckon that's going to sell more shoes. \[15:59\] It's to buy in — it's awareness. I don't think that event would have sold more shoes directly, but it's awareness — if you're going into Pacific Fair to buy some shoes for your next marathon, or going out to buy training shoes, and you walk past the Adidas store, walk past the ASICS store, and see the Nike store, top of your mind is Nike just did this big thing you've \[16:29\] been watching and following along with, and everything else — that's going to sway your judgement to buy. OK, I don't disagree with you that as a product, the event itself could have been packaged better. I think the box could've been better — the thing it was wrapped in didn't need all the excess packaging, it could've just been one nice layer of wrapping rather than \[17:03\] an hour's worth of wrapping. Yeah, in this case, I think it was a bit like a wedding — the build-up to it is where they got all the benefit, everyone talking about it, sharing all the different things, working out: can she do it, can she not? And then when it was done, it was like, OK. I need to go back and watch it, because I don't want to comment too much without having seen any of it, and I don't want to just hit you with a laundry list and sound pessimistic — I think Nike are the big winners out of this. \[17:34\] There's been a lot of media build-up for a long time, and across all socials, having a female athlete go out and do that with all the sport focused on her — it was great, and what I did get excited about was watching her come out with that whole team of athletes around her. Well, let me ask you this — if it wasn't Faith, if it was anyone, Humphries, Suconi, whoever — what else is there in the running space that would be worth an investment to try and \[18:09\] create something like that? Is there a time, a distance, a number, something? No — and I think that's why they went there, that was the obvious next step. They've done the marathon and the four-minute mile, so the next step to me would be the 100 metres. I was going to say, that's what jumps out to me immediately — or the long jump. If you're talking about who's the — I wanted to bring this up with you the other week, \[18:39\] Who's the young Swedish pole vaulter? You should know his name — Armand Duplantis, the Swedish pole vaulter, he's Swedish-American but competes for Sweden. Are you aware of — remind me, we'll go back to that 100 metres thing — are you aware of what he's been doing with the world record bonuses? Have you seen this story? No, but I'm making the assumption without seeing it, he's just been knocking a centimetre or two off each time. That's exactly what he's doing — he's probably got 20 centimetres up doing exactly that. He \[19:10\] gets a $100,000 bonus from World Athletics each time he breaks the world record. He's broken the world record 12 times — every time he does it, it's by a centimetre, and then he says, "I've won world record, $100,000, see you next time," plus, plus, because every other sponsor is also tipping in on that world record. And the conditions are that it's only one bonus per meet, \[19:41\] which is why he doesn't bother going again once he breaks it, he can't — it's not one world record twice. Exactly, so going back, we were talking about what other space a running brand could target — speed, right? And if you think about what captures the imagination, you just talked about Nike doing this to stay front of mind when people are walking through Pacific Fair buying shoes, speed is the other one. I do believe when we're talking, like jump — \[20:13\] yes, I agree, like jump — how, what's the technology to make someone able to jump higher? Because to me that's a bit of an enigma, how far can someone jump, like basketball, you watch it, and it's — but think about how long. To me it's the long jump, because isn't the men's long jump world record one of the longest-standing records? It might be one of the longest — I was going to bring that up. Mike Powell, of the United States, wow, that's all — he beat \[20:43\] Carl Lewis' time, so it's been standing for 30-odd years — he jumped 8.95 metres. So does the equipment have to catch up to the equipment of that day? Allegedly. But I did see a post the other day of the longest-standing world record in athletics, and it's actually the female 800 metres — they had a picture, a Czech athlete, \[21:15\] Jarmila Kratochvílová, 800 metres, yes — 41 years standing. And when they showed the video of the event — maybe we'll do this another week and discuss it, because it is quite eye-opening, it was definitely in the Eastern Bloc heyday. Well, interesting to note, the next closest time is held by Pamela Jelimo — I don't know where she's from — but Caster Semenya has the third fastest, but they deleted her record. So this is the thing, they deleted her record but didn't — \[21:48\] have proven positive drug tests from many of the athletes in that era, to put a bow on the Breaking4 thing — I love it, I hope more brands explore this pathway, I hope more of them try and figure out novel ways to celebrate athletes, efforts, or feats in a product we can all enjoy and consume in a fun way. \[22:18\] Perfect way to put a bow on it. All right — Dead Cow Gully Backyard Ultra, that's a mouthful. Speaking of packaging things — I had to go and look up where, because this is a very niche event, probably one of the most niche, but because of the nature of what a backyard ultra is — just running around, what is it, 6.7 kilometres, \[22:50\] 6.7, every hour, and just keep doing that for as long as you can. So actually, Red Bull Race the Sun alumnus Phil Gore raced this — did he? He ran it last year, there you go — and he won and broke the world record doing 119 loops. So for context, 800 kilometres in five days. So 119 loops, and if your brain's like mine, you've suddenly put that in a circle — a loop is a circle, \[23:20\] therefore — OK, I'm doing 119 loops, put that into days, five days. Now you might think you could sneak a sleep in, but you've got to run the 6.7K every hour. Let's say hypothetically Phil suddenly has a four-minute-K loop in him, and let's say the most sleep he could possibly get, because you've got to be up and ready to go — the most sleep realistically he could get on any one lap might be 20 minutes, and I don't even think \[23:54\] you'd have got that. So over five days, the most rest you're probably having at any one time is 10 to 15 minutes. Man, it's — before any of the running even happens, this is the one where, I suppose, with all the long-distance running stuff going around, this puts it into a package — that's what it's all about — and says, this is what you've got to do. And so there's an element of competition there, of \[24:25\] seeing how long these guys can just keep going on and on and on, it's crazy. Sam Harvey, from New Zealand — I watched a YouTube doco on him the other day — he set the New Zealand national record too, but he just gave up his job and said, "I'm just gonna start doing this running stuff to see how far I can go." These guys are the real heroes, I reckon, when you talk about the distance stuff. Like we talked about Western States — if you have Western \[24:55\] States, that's like — to me, I compare that to Ironman, kind of comparable in the sense of 14 hours, it's not a sleep-deprivation thing. Elite Ironman now go a bit quicker, they're going like 7 and a half hours, but the average Ironman is out there around 12, maybe 12 to 14 hours. So it's in that realm of a day's effort. This backyard-ultra stuff is like — you've got to deal with sleep deprivation, deal with the demons of all of that and everything else going on, and have the endurance to keep \[25:27\] going. And I think you really cracked it last episode when you talked about the fact that sleep is the determining factor between what you and I decided are races that are enjoyable and ones that are torturous. This isn't enjoyable. No, that's what I mean, you cracked it last week when you said it's sleep — sleep is what allows you to recover, and enjoy things, and enjoy the pain and limits you can test yourself with. \[25:58\] So this happens all around the world — obviously different backyard ultras have started over in the States, but I had to look up where Dead Cow Gully was. It happens out near Kingaroy, southern Queensland — no, inland from the Sunshine Coast, out on a property there. And they created the event to try to break the world record, so it's had plenty of coverage — ABC covered it, I bet SBS also got on the bandwagon. \[26:32\] What do you reckon, has he won? Have you looked into that? No, but I'm going to take a — this man ran for five days, 800 K's. I think I've heard this, is this Dead Cow — maybe. But I'm looking at the prize money — because according to this, 2024, last year's winner won $10,000\. If you offered me 10 — \[27:04\] no. If you offered me 10 grand to run 800 K's, that's better than a lot of other running events, true — it's better than City2Surf. What's the prize money at City2Surf? I looked it up the other — I think it's like 2.5 grand for the winner, that seems crazy to me, 90,000 runners, 2.5 grand to win. Really? Yep, don't fact-check me, but we were looking at it the other day for another reason — you're actually spot on, first-place male and female runners each receive $2,000. \[27:34\] That's nuts, this is one of the most participated-in fun runs in the world, surely they can stump up a bigger purse for the winners. I wonder if they stumped up a bigger purse, would we see — did you race better, harder when the prize was bigger? Of course, you'd put more on the line. Someone says to you, half a million to go run first, \[28:04\] $10,000, you're going to put a lot more in it. Now, you shouldn't say that because it's not going to make you run faster, but you'll put more priority on that event. Now, I know the course has been changed — is Mona's record of 40:03 breakable on the current course? I don't know enough about how much the course — I know it changed, but 2024, last year's event, Isaac Hain came in with 40:49, so he's 46 seconds back from \[28:35\] Mona's. Well then, I'd say yeah, it's breakable. Is another 20 grand capable of improving your time by 46 seconds? Imagine if there was $25,000 on offer. It's an interesting one, isn't it. I actually thought until recently there was 2.5 thousand on offer — I know when Michael Shelley was around winning, or trying to win it, it might have been just a flight to their sister event for winning that series. \[29:07\] Yeah, I was sure — and someone out there correct us if we're wrong, I was sure the backyard ultra at Dead Cow Gully, you get literally a bag of cow poo, that's what you get to take away. Let us know which one it is if it is Dead Cow or another one. Someone's definitely told me that. Michael Shelley did win it in 2009, took it out in a time of 41:02, and since then it's been a bit \[29:38\] of back-and-forth between Harry Summers, Benny St Lawrence, and Liam Adams. My memory's shot, but I'm pretty sure I actually ran that year he won — have you got the results there? I had a feeling I might have got 5th or 6th. Possibly something around there. Hey, we didn't put it on the podcast because it was going to be too difficult to explain, but this week my misfortune in not being able to run at the \[30:09\] Gold Coast Marathon became someone else's good fortune, and we put a little comp up on social. I just wanted to let everyone know who entered or saw it — the winner, the person we've given it to, there's a great little story behind it. His name's Timmy, and he's going to run the half marathon. Ricky Estall was the one who submitted him and said it'd be amazing to get him a run — he runs for his late daughter Luna every year. She was three when she got hit by \[30:40\] a car, and he does a marathon every year in her honour. He wanted to do a couple more, so I thought that was a nice story to help someone out who didn't have an entry. That's awesome, so good luck on the weekend, Timmy, and we'll — you'll have to make sure you give me Timmy's bib number. It won't be my bib number, no — he'll be out there running. Well, Ricky, if you're listening, please send through Timmy's details to the Instagram page 'cause I'd love to at \[31:13\] the very least find him on the finish line, give him a shout-out, or otherwise just give him a big hug to say well done, 'cause it's an awesome story and I can't wait to see him cross that line on Sunday. Just quickly coming back to City2Surf — I found this cool page that ranks the City2Surf all-time male rankings. Is it by course record or just on time? Time only. So I've just checked myself, I haven't made the \[31:44\] top list. So you can actually search it? Yeah, the top 450 are on here — Courtney Atkinson. Oh, here we go — ranking males on the 14K course, 1976 to 2018\. Do I make it? Courtney Atkinson, you sit 159th all-time. Gee, that doesn't sound too good. 43 minutes and 11 \[32:14\] seconds, 43:11\. And then obviously Monas is on there — you're 3:08 behind Mona. Robert de Castella's in second. How many times is Mona on this list? Oh geez, that's eight times — they count multiple performances by the same athlete. So Mona's in front of you like six times on that list, kind of a little bit misleading. No, that doesn't make me the \[32:47\] 159th slowest. No, you're right, runner — because Liam Adams is in front of you a fair bit too. OK, I'm gonna call you out on this, John Andrews is in front of you eight times, that's misleading then. You shocked me there, I didn't think it could be that — Tony McCartney's in front of you four times too. Anyway, means I could have been in the top 50, possibly, maybe. Nah. You may be — anyway, back to \[33:18\] getting back to Gold Coast — we're on about Gold Coast this weekend. Will Gibson gave you a shout-out — hey boys, he wanted to know how you're pulling up, and are you doing a three-hour time? Because Will's going to be a pacer for anyone running around 3:10, good man — he said mate, if you fall off your pace he's gonna give you a kick up the backside. So anyone going out with the three-hour group and the three-hour pacer, don't let him catch \[33:49\] you — shout-out Will, thank you for the message, mate. Sadly you won't be there for me to give a kick up the ass, find me on the finish line, give me a pat on the back, mate. It'd be great, all these people who have followed along with the podcast in the lead-up to the Goldie Marathon — if you're listening to this after the marathon and you've run it, well done. If you're listening on the Saturday beforehand, just enjoy tomorrow. I said to Bronte, how's she feeling this week? I \[34:19\] saw her in the office today. It's funny, we had a chat because she posted about her last PT session before the race, and I said, did it feel like when you did that last session, "oh, I've managed to get out of that uninjured"? And she said yeah, when he said we were doing glute \[34:51\] stuff, my brain started going, oh, just don't hurt anything — there was this mindset for her now which is that of an athlete, I'm ready now. So she's really excited, but it was off the back of last week's episode talking about pacing. And I saw a great comment, I'm not sure if it was on Spotify or Instagram, about "Maranoia" — how somebody termed it, marathon paranoia. I loved it, I thought it was a great \[35:21\] phrase — apologies to whoever used it, but "Maranoia" was a great way to describe what a lot of people are feeling. Here it is — Chandra Ralston said, "Great episode guys, Maranoia is definitely setting in for me." I hadn't heard that one before. Bronte's producer on the radio show is a young fellow named Harry who's been shadowing Bronte along this whole marathon journey, their time in running's quite similar. Harry listens to the podcast, he loves it. \[35:51\] I came out of a meeting on Monday this week and Harry came into the meeting — it was a big all-staff meeting — and as I was walking out I just said to everybody, show some patience with Harry, he's running a marathon this weekend for the first time, so whatever gets said in this meeting he'll forget, because all that's happening in his brain right now is what happens if I start too fast, how am I going to feel at 25K, he's not listening to anything any of you are saying — he's \[36:23\] a completely zero net result at work this week, 'cause all his attention's focused on the marathon. I also ran into Luke, who works for the company we're at this week, he's been listening and loves the show, particularly the esky story — he's running, reckons he'll be around Bron's pace, he's been listening along too. He did also tell me — I said, how'd you get onto the podcast, how'd you find it — he said he found it on socials but recognised you from your show with MG, \[36:55\] the big one, and then he put two and two together, worked out who you were. Well, we might have to tell Liam that one. So good luck to everyone running, and again we'll figure out something for social, I had no idea, I'll talk to you about it afterwards. Courtney, what about your run, where you going, what's going on? I've been off-grid four days this week, we went camping with a whole group of families we do trips with. We went — funny enough, I was back out at Tenterfield, of all places, two weeks after Red Bull Race the \[37:26\] Sun, we went back through Tenterfield, then about another hour and a half further out on some dirt roads till we found a spot where you get away from mobile reception. It was freezing, mate — the first night, I don't know what the temperature was, but I love winter camping, if you're going camping and it's cold, it's great, you make a big bonfire and hang around, but it was still cold — you'd wake up scratching ice off the car in the morning. It got better after that. \[37:56\] But even the water — the kids and my son took wetsuits out because there's this big rock they jump off, like camping on a gorge out there. The water was at that temperature where the first day I jumped in without a wetsuit, thinking, ice bath, jump in, freshen up — I lasted about — I went down to check for any logs and stuff, in case the kids were \[38:29\] jumping off the rocks, make sure it's all clear, and I probably got about half a body length in before my head said, I'm out of here, that's enough. Did you get some running in? No, didn't run — I took the shoes and just relaxed out there, had all good intentions. Funny thing was we were told you needed a four-wheel drive to get in there, and the guy who owned the property said, oh, just allow another hour for my driveway, it's 4.2K — we thought he was taking the piss a little bit, but he wasn't. \[39:00\] It was a decent slog in there, needed to test the car out. But yeah, he just relaxed. What I did do this morning — I am back running, I've been jogging up till now. So this morning I went down to the Spit with the Gold Coast Run Co. Most of the crew there are running 5Ks, 10Ks, a few running the marathon, they were doing their lead-up, so we did a 20-minute Norwegian fartlek. \[39:31\] So if anyone's listening and wondering what the more elite runners do on a Tuesday before the marathon, or before running the 10K this weekend — we literally warmed up 20 minutes jogging, ran a 20-minute Norwegian fartlek, so 90 seconds on, 90 seconds off, 60 seconds on, 60 seconds off, four 30s and 30s, then four 15s and 15s. And Jacko the coach said, mate, let's give it some, we want to make sure we're woken up, but \[40:02\] also just be conscious you're racing this weekend. I know the front boys, like Jordan, a few of the boys at the front, got down to like 2:40 pace. Well, there's — Benita said in Wednesday's episode that some of the runs you want in marathon week should be faster than marathon pace. Yeah, that's a lot faster than marathon pace, but you know, really wake up. I ran through conservatively at around 3:45 average, so your conservative is back up. I'm running, knocking off about 50K a week. \[40:35\] But now things will ramp up a little bit. I'm still running, still plodding a little bit, it's amazing how life gets in the way, I've been very busy. But last week I tried, it was interesting because I tried to run a bit under 5K pace — I don't reckon I've really tried to run under 5K pace since I hit my car, \[41:07\] so that's three months ago now. And bear in mind, I know people will say, that's still good running for me — where my mind was at with my running four months ago was that I could do a sub-three-hour marathon, that's where my running was at, sub-4-minute Ks weren't intimidating to me. Right now the idea of running a sub-4-minute K is terrifying to me, that's where I'm at now. So I went out for a run the other day, did 10 minutes warm-up, then did 4 minutes, not with any pace in mind, just to \[41:41\] move a bit more, and I averaged 4:30 for the four Ks, then did a cool-down. I pulled up so sore — nothing was torn or strained, I was just generally sore, running even 30 seconds quicker was really sore. So I took a couple of days off after that, but then Sunday just gone I got a nice long — for me — 14K run in, nice, just touch under 5-minute pace. Everything's fine, everything's good. \[42:11\] So touch wood, now I'm starting to think about what's next. Just a little itch, have a look what's around, figure out what's going on next. But the body's feeling good, I'm back enjoying running, and I couldn't be more excited about this weekend, to get around that vibe of the marathon. Good news is we can start talking about ourselves a little bit again, we've been talking a lot about buddies, everyone else running, let's be selfish. Now you've got shoe stuff, I've got some gear. \[42:43\] Let's go — a few posts I've seen this week, and this one, I actually can't see who it was, ranked the top shoes of 2024 in the World Marathon Majors. They've gone through all of the majors, male and female, and put the shoes in a ranking. Can you guess number one? Marathon Majors shoe brand, number one? Adidas. \[43:14\] The Adidas Adizero Pro Evo. What's interesting is the Adios Pro 4 also came in at number four. Nike Alphafly 3 at number two. How many other shoe brands are in the top — we've got Adidas, Nike, Nike, Adidas, ASICS, On Cloudboom Now — think of it like the Olympic medal tally, it's not about how many awards, it's about \[43:46\] medals — like when Togo gets a medal in kayaking they suddenly jump up the tally, beating Japan because Japan got 20 silvers and hasn't won a gold. Sorry Japan, I wasn't raised — that was the first thing that came to mind. So On Cloudboom, another Adidas, three now, enter — have you heard of Anta? A-N-T-A. Who won wearing the shoe — Anta, the sports equipment company, Anta Sports. Do you know what the logo of Anta looks a little bit like? \[44:16\] They come from Deodora — maybe it's a rebranded Deodora, is that still out there? It's the Chinese sports equipment multinational corporation. Chinese shoe. What were those shoes you gave me, those horrible green things — weren't they Kiprun? Kiprun's Decathlon's branded shoe, isn't it? Do you know what's interesting? While you're looking that up, \[44:47\] so On Cloudboom another, Under Armour got a silver, one silver, two, three for a Puma, for their Deviate Nitro. It gets a big rap, that Nitro — I just reckon it gets a big rap because of the look, not that I've ever tried one. And then even a Nike Vaporfly came in three — you know, we took them down, but Adidas, Courtney Atkinson, five golds versus Nike's two. You are part of the Anta family — what? Salomon, owned by Amer Sports, yes, Amer Sports, which is owned \[45:21\] by Anta. Wow, OK, we are breaking ground here — you're part of the Anta Sports family. You're telling me Anta owns Amer? Amer Sports? That's exactly what I'm telling you. Does — the first thing that comes up — does Nike own Anta? Amer Sports is owned by a consortium led by Anta Sports, with Chip Wilson a fan of a few. Anta Sports own 44.5% of Amer Sports, so that would be \[45:53\] the majority stakeholder. Yep, you're right. There you go. So you need to get yourself some Anta shoes. Maybe — we've got educate Pete, Pete from Salomon, hey, Pete's coming, he's — you're not running, but he's still racing you. No, no, I'm gonna catch up with Pete, is he still going after the sub-three? Yep, how's he feeling? He said he's everything's going good, so I'm going to catch up with him before the race. So that's like the parent company or the \[46:23\] — we've got off track too quickly, and I know you're just talking, but we need to go back because you've got another shoe thing you want to talk about, keep going, keep rolling, Pete coming in. This is the other thing about the marathon which I encourage everyone — if you haven't done one, if you're listening and you're not a part of one yet, sign one up, because the anticipation that builds ahead of this stuff is so good. And the other thing, if you're on the Gold Coast, the shakeout runs are brilliant, they're everywhere Friday morning. If you're not a part of the \[46:53\] running community you'll wonder what's going on because they're everywhere. What's the best shakeout advertisement you've seen, which one would you want to attend? Well, I'm attending AG1's shakeout run — because I'm also going to be doing a bit of Q&A with Andy Buchanan after the shakeout run. Andy Buchanan, for those that aren't aware, the marathon runner, right — is it kosher to be able to just put your \[47:24\] iPhone on and record yourself while you're doing it? Are you asking will I steal some content from Andy Buchanan for this podcast, or just in general for social? That's exactly what I'm going to do — thanks to AG1 for a free interview with Andy, I'll record some of the chat with him and share it. It's you, you can take it. \[47:54\] And all it's doing is spreading the AG1 message further and wider. No doubt Andy will get that. So you're going to AG1's — is there any others you've looked at? Oh, that one looks good, I've seen the mob who run at the front of Karana — Salt Runners are having a shakeout run, the Salt Mill mob having a shakeout run, I think I saw. It's Clean going on \[48:24\] pace, athletic — of course they're doing the Post, or whatever you want to call it, post-run thing, with the Oxley down at Nobbies, that's a cool crowd down there. The other thing I'll say — we've given them the halfway house at EMQ next year, halfway point at the turnaround as we stand, also a central hub for everyone to go to afterwards. That's the next evolution of the event in my opinion. OK, let's keep going, back to the shoes — so that was the road shoes we covered, \[48:56\] of interest. So going back to Western States, full circle, what we began with — there's a lot of cool prototypes in this file that people were running in. So I'm gonna give you another stab at this — women's top-10 shoes at Western States, trail shoes now, brand number one? Salomon? No, they were third. ASICS? No ASICS at all, either men \[49:29\] or women. I'll guess Nike then — no, we said Nike won the men's. It's Adidas. I didn't even know they really did trail shoes. I've talked about trying an Adidas shoe here — what's the trail shoe called? Brett Carter from Sydney sent me his pair, said you gotta try these. Terrex. Oh yeah, I do remember those. Just on this, right, because when I Google Adidas Terrex, it comes up with that big bright orange \[49:59\] writing, Terrex — it doesn't look like an Adidas shoe because the three stripes are covered. It's a kind of outdoor mountain range, downhill skiers also wear Terrex clothing, whatever they're wearing around, so it's more their outdoor brand. If you look at that, would you say that looks like its own brand? Yeah, I wouldn't have said, if you showed me that and I didn't know Terrex, that picture — \[50:30\] you'd say that's not Adidas, there's no way you'd say that's an Adidas. You've got to know that branding, but in trail they're quite heavy on that branding. I did also learn the other day it's also mountain, so snow sports as well. So if I go down the list quickly — Adidas, then Hoka, Salomon, and another brand, the cheese — it's gonna go somewhere else with that. Salomon, Kailas. \[51:01\] There's another one, Kailas — K-A-I-L-A-S, it's gotta be another Chinese shoe. And the model was the Fuga, F-U-G-A, worn by — Kilian. Yeah, good one, Kate. Do you know Kailas? So while you're looking that up — then it was Adidas again, Adidas, Nike, Adidas — they're really strong. \[51:34\] So that's the women's side. If you go down the men's top ten, we've got Nike, Brooks — Brooks make a thing called Norman, which is Kilian Jornet's own shoe — On Cloudultra, another Adidas — that's Dan, Dan runs for Terrex — Norda, Ultra Scarpa, which is Scarpa, probably better known for climbing shoes — and another Adidas. So when you come to trail running, this is where the real innovation goes. \[52:05\] And a lot of them, like the Nike Ultrafly 2 that Caleb Olson won the race in, is a prototype, not out yet. What else, the Craft trail shoe — was that a prototype too, fourth in the women's? There's a lot more prototypes, lots of trialling shoes in this, but the range of different shoes across the board in trail, that's where real innovation, I suppose, is happening. \[52:35\] It also gives a bit more play because, on the road, we all know now the rubber and the plate work together and you've got to have that. On trail, there's still a little bit of personal preference — the Kilian Jornet shoe, the Norman, it's got rubber but looks more like a traditional trail shoe, a bit lower stacked, whereas the Adidas ones are still high-stacked with their own \[53:07\] proprietary three-pronged blade in it. OK, here's — the Kailas, I'm going to say that's how the brand's pronounced, Kailas. Really interesting, quick Google — Kailas was founded in 2003, relatively new, by a passionate mountain biker, skier, and outdoorsman, Zong, in China. He founded it to address the needs of China's growing population of campers and trekkers. So this article I'm \[53:38\] reading here — as it happened, his friendship with numerous dirtbag mountaineers led to the brand developing and producing a growing selection of technical mountaineering products for those same friends. Kailas, named after Mount Kailash, a famous Tibetan pilgrimage mountain, soon found itself a leading figure in China's nascent mountaineering community. So basically this guy took his passion for something, combined it with a boom happening at the time, and now it's a fairly successful little project for him. \[54:11\] That Fuga they're running in has that Boa system at the top of the range. The Boa system is — anyone who rides push bikes will know the ratchet system you wind up, whereas Salomon use a speed lace you lock down. The Boa ratchet system's heavier, that's the drawback, but the argument is once you ratchet it down, it can't release at all. \[54:42\] Both serve the same purpose, one's just done through a ratchet, but there's a bit of a weight trade-off. What's the — pounds technology? I don't know what you're — well, because as I dig deeper into Kailas, after eight years of R&D, in 2019 they launched the world's first trail running shoe with pounds technology and a patented four-point gaiter holder system. I'm gonna just guess that's marketing jargon for something that already exists in \[55:13\] another way, and I'm not joking — Boa was in snow boots and bikes, load-bearing support or lightweight stability. So it is just marketing. You know what I am a bit envious of, as I was reading through that list — the S-Lab Pulsar 4, the Salomon race shoe, upgraded to the four, and I don't have it. This is turning into shoe porn, by the way, this is turning into proper shoe porn, we've descended into a rabbit hole here, I apologise, it's rare we find ourselves down one of these, but we've \[55:45\] properly disappeared, Courtney's taken us into a deep, dark corner of shoe porn — here, to end the podcast, so we apologise. Can I just drag us out of your dark, dirty closet for a moment, Courtney? Sure. Gold Coast Marathon this weekend, Sydney the next major on the horizon for a lot of people — we know the hype around Eliud is gonna start building, Kipchoge coming to town, jump on YouTube, there's a first episode about Eliud's journey to Sydney, 'cause he's never been to Australia before. I did see it, was this the one \[56:16\] with the kangaroos? Well, they show him using kangaroos, I think so. But go and have a watch of it, it's just gonna start to build the excitement. The other great news is, and it shouldn't be — it's hard when the shadow of Eliud Kipchoge comes along around a marathon to get excited about anything else, everything does kind of get put in the shade — but Sifan Hassan, the Netherlands gold medallist from the last Olympics, Paris, she's signed on, she's coming. So this is massive, another world-class superstar of the \[56:50\] sport, and Kenya's Brigid Kosgei is also running. So suddenly this marathon's got major classification, but that doesn't guarantee a great race on its own. Now you've got a field that's genuinely worth it, my excitement is really building about Sydney. Do you know what does guarantee a great race? What's that? Money. Yeah, you're such a silly get, \[57:20\] get back in your dirty — that's it, back in the comedy shoe closet. It takes a bit to get you there, but this isn't just running — it is hard to get international superstars down to Australia when they're in season, it's a long way to travel, so it does take something to get them there and it's great to see they're all in town. Do you know Wayne Larden, the race director, at all? No, I just saw his name mentioned, I don't know Wayne, never met him. I'm curious to know whether \[57:52\] Wayne was a very handy runner himself, or around triathlon back in my earlier days. Here's a question out of left field to finish the pod — do you need to be a good runner, or have been a good runner, to be a good race director? No. Does it help? I'm thinking of the analogy of footy coaching to footy players. I don't think so, I think you just need to be an amazingly efficient organiser. No, I don't think you have to have run a race. \[58:22\] I think whatever you're doing, it's very helpful to be passionate about it. There you go, that's probably more important. All right, well — passionate about it, have a great call at Gold Coast this weekend, and good luck to everyone, it's been a long road coming and it's on. And make sure, if you're not already, if you're one of the listeners of the podcast and you're not already following the Instagram account, jump on, because I'm going to be taking over the Instagram account Saturday and Sunday morning at the Gold Coast Marathon finish line. Amazing. All right.