EP 47 - FROM OUTBACK GORGES TO HYBRID ROCK STARS

[00:00] In the Beginning, episode 47, we are back. Courtney Atkinson, you are back. You've been on a hell of an adventure. It's been a bit of an adventure in between eps for you and I. Yeah, we've both been on our respective adventures. I had a bit of mine, wasn't really a running adventure, but I still got to run in the morning, in the sunrise. I was about as far, well, at least in Queensland, unless you were going to go up to the Cape, I was about as far away and remote as you can get. So I flew from Brisbane to Mount Isa and then drove another four

[00:31] hours north. Yeah, geez, that's a long way away. So nearly out to the NT border, and there's a place out there at Lawn Hill National Park which is like an oasis in the desert. I was out there filming some stuff for Tourism QLD. Been about five years since I'd gone through there, maybe even a bit longer. It never gets old. You can send me out there any day, not a job. Before you tell us about your run out there, we've got an announcement for people straight off the top today. We are very excited that you and I are headed south for the

[01:05] Sydney Marathon. Not to run, but we've got on board with the legends at AG1, and we're gonna be heading down on the Friday to do a live podcast. How exciting, huh? Is this the first one of these we've done? Now the way this works, 'cause if there are people listening to this who are running Sydney Marathon at the end of the month and wanna come along, what's happening is on the Friday, obviously the marathon's happening on the Sunday. On the Friday beforehand, AG1 is having a shakeout run down at

[01:39] Bondi, and then we'll be at Bondi Icebergs dining room doing a live episode of the pod with a nutritionist from AG1 who's going to be talking to us a bit about the product, but also with the best marathoner in this country, Andy Buchanan. Right, my mate? That's gonna be an exciting morning. A bit of pressure on us. Liam, the performer, was coming along as well. Now we're gonna be doing a first

[02:10] live episode of In the Beginning Podcast, thanks to AG1. Now it's not an open invite thing, but there is an opportunity for listeners to the pod to get involved. Make sure you're following Drink AG1 AU, the Instagram account. Make sure it's the Australian account, because they are going to be opening up some select seats, some select slots for the podcast and the shakeout run on Friday morning.

[02:41] So go on, jump on and follow that account, Drink AG1 AU, and details will come out as to how you can get one of those spots for the shakeout run and the live episode of In the Beginning. But if you can't get there and you don't get a chance to be at the live podcast, that will then drop on the Saturday morning. We'll roll it out so you'll hear what happens regardless. And on our little trip down to Sydney, we're looking into something we're trying not to talk about, but I'm not promising anything. You don't like me teasing

[03:14] things? No, in case they don't come off. Whereas I feel like if I tease things, we have to make them happen. It hasn't worked yet. Although I was having a conversation this morning about Michael Shelley, and I didn't realise he doesn't do podcasts, 'cause he doesn't have to, he's Michael Shelley. A few people said to me he doesn't do podcasts. How did you get him on? I said, well, I did run with him for 10 years, probably owed me a thing or two. But anyway, beautiful. Thank you to AG1 for giving us the opportunity to come down and be part of the Sydney

[03:46] Marathon in its first year as a major. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and obviously for all the In the Beginning family, we'll be able to share that podcast with Andy with you on that Saturday, which is August 30th, which is my birthday. Oh, double whammy. There you go. Now talk to me about where you've been. Tell me a bit more, you've just given us a rough explanation, but what did you see, what is this gorge place? You showed me some incredible photos before. We'll throw up a photo or two if you're watching on the Spotify video as well. But like I said, it's

[04:17] an oasis in the desert. The big floods two years ago up in the Territory, in the Gulf, absolutely flattened the area. So what was once a big gorge obviously just got so much water through there, not just in the gorge but across the whole landscape, it changed it. So the national park's only just reopened, and it's going to be opening in stages. We were just up there getting some pics, getting some video, and hopefully showing people that if you're out travelling that way, it's a long

[04:47] way, but if you're on a road trip up on the Savannah Way or anything like that, it's a place you've got to pull in and check out. And at the same time, I didn't get to go, but the Mount Isa Rodeo was on at the same time. Was it really? Yeah. So when you go somewhere like that, you said you went for a run, what run did you do? Yeah, so we were up there, I was actually working up there and getting out in the morning at sunrise for photos and video and all that, and paddling up the gorge in kayaks showing the adventure that's out there. But I'm always looking for a window.

[05:19] So I got out there, roads are straight out there and they do it. I literally ran out from where I was staying and just went half an hour one way, and except for one corner it was just a dead straight white gravel road. No cars, no anybody, in the middle of nowhere. You love that, you don't get better than that. And then the next morning I jumped up before we had to head back and got out before the sun

[05:52] rose, and had a quick run, I was up on more of the National Park road, and just had a run along there in the dark. Yeah, that was magic, man. I believe. Look, I've always said my getting outdoors, like really outdoors, is what still excites me. And it's crazy, like all those years I did triathlon, my whole life we were so road focused. When I was riding bikes it was always road focused, we got out in the valleys and nice places around the cities, but I never really got off road or went on these adventures

[06:24] till I finished triathlon, and mate, the world then just opened up. So now if I get any opportunity, I'll always jump out there. Do you think you were always preconditioned and predisposed to liking the trails, or do you think being, as you say, so many years as a triathlete restricted to roads and running, that it converted you? I reckon, 'cause I loved cross country as a kid, that was my favourite, way better than running track or road or anything.

[06:56] And even with cross country, people around Brisbane and Queensland who were around my school time will remember when a course had water crossings. There was a course down at Kedron, people in the area will remember, they always did the state championships at Kedron, and it's literally grass fields, not much of a cross country course, except you had to go through Kedron Brook a few times and there'd always be water. So you had about three water crossings, and everyone would be like, most people's shoes getting wet was an annoyance, but I was always like, let's hope it's up

[07:28] to your waist. Yeah, I wanted more. So the answer to the question is, I always wanted more adventure. I probably was always suited to being more off road, but my bread and butter was on the road. Can we just quickly talk about river crossings, water crossings, how do you, because there'll be trail runners listening to this, how do you tackle them? Like from a safety perspective, or when you know not to go.

[07:58] through. Let's say you're out running a trail for the very first time and suddenly you happen upon a water crossing, you've got no idea how deep it is. I'm not expecting you to be an outback survivalist here, but how would you approach it? It's a good guess most of the time. I mean, you know, generally, although remember that story I was telling you about in Nerang that day, I took the group out, and me and Lindsay Laurie jumped in and I

[08:28] lost my footing 'cause I couldn't see the bottom and got swept down. And that was in the Nerang, it's just up there, it's in three foot of water, it's not like a big outback crossing or something. But the other one, on the Gold Coast at least, which is the one I often go to, when there's been a bit of rain, right down the bottom of the Twin, not Twin Falls itself, but down the bottom of the Warrie Circuit, there's a crossing there that when there's a fair bit of water flowing, it's got some big boulders, it's rocky, but there's like quite

[08:58] deep holes in between, and if you lost your footing there on a good day it would give you a good sweep and knock your head. So that's one we kind of probably avoid. But generally, mate, you just pop your finger in and hope. I did have, it was so funny, I was driving out of Mount Isa on the weekend up to Lawn Hill, and there's probably a good 160K of just dirt roads heading out to a place, it's a World Heritage

[09:29] site with fossil dinosaur fossils called Riversleigh. On the way out there, there's a couple of crossings which are spring fed, so there's always water in them. I don't know whether they get worse or better, or how it works with the spring fed water or where the rainwater gets in there, but they always do seem to be at different heights. We drove through in a four-wheel-drive on the weekend, I got to the first one, went through, no stress. The second one we went through, I'm like, no stress, and then about halfway across I

[10:00] was like, oh, this is actually. I'm in a hire, what was it, a Max Isuzu, and I'm like, I don't know the clearance on this. But anyway, we're halfway through now, let's just keep going, and that's pretty much how I treat running. Yeah, nice. Well, I'm excited, because you, lover of adventure, man of the trails, and you had an adventure last week, get to tell you about a trail run that you haven't done yet. Well, have you done that?

[10:33] Well, you'll hear the end of it. Oh yeah. OK, so I talked about this on last week's episode, the Gidjum Gulgangi Walk, is that pronounced right? The Gidjum Gulgangi Walk, so it's been opened up by the NSW National Parks as a four-day hike. You pay to go and hike, and

[11:06] there's campgrounds along the way, you obviously hike in with your, everything you need, and take it all with you. But I went down there as I mentioned last week, except I met down there with Rosie, and the goal was to do it in a day. It's 42Ks, I think it's about 1,800 elevation or thereabouts. Yep, sounds about right. And you start out of Yukai, an hour and a half from the Gold Coast to get down there.

[11:37] It's got good mountain bike trails out of Yukai. So we parked, and one of my favourite parts was literally we pulled up there because Rosie picked me up at 4:30 to get down there. We were planning for a 6am start after we'd stopped off and had a coffee, and we ended up hitting the trail at about 6:30 in the morning. But literally as we got there, there was a father and son about to start as well, they'd lived at the other end of the trail and their mum had dropped them off there, and they

[12:07] were having a photo in front of the sign to start. Same thing with tents on their backs, they were going to camp. No, no, they were planning, I think he said, the young fellow's name was Patrick and dad's name was Andrew. The son was preparing for, I can't remember what it is, but it's like a 30-day hike, like 700Ks or something, so they were proper hiking. They were planning on running a bit of it too, but mostly it's kind of

[12:37] a multi-day thing. But yeah, same thing, we did it in a day. Dave and I were so excited, we were both, I in particular was really nervous, I have not run 42Ks since last year's Gold Coast Marathon, and I certainly haven't run 42Ks on the trail since I did UTA50, three years ago, very different. So I was nervous, I didn't know how difficult this track was gonna be, as the

[13:07] night before, I pulled the Salomon pack out from Kunanyi and I was throwing everything in, I still had your emergency pack with the gloves and the thermal foil blanket. You wouldn't believe how much gear I lose, I'm still chasing up Lindsay Laurie about it, he's still got some of my gear. But I went out to get my first aid kit to go on this trip on

[13:37] the weekend, and I didn't have it, because I'd given it all to the sweep runners from the Red Bull Race the Sun. So it was going to bed that night and getting up, I was actually a bit nervous, and we got in the car with Dave and there was a little bit of nervousness as we were talking about it. But to see this father and son about to start the whole thing as well, we were like, awesome, that's great. Immediately, any sense of nerves went, we're gonna go quicker than these guys. Well, they

[14:07] can pick us up, they started beforehand. Did they have a lunchbox? I don't know if they had a lunchbox, but they started before us and we caught them up after about 10K or so. But the first 10K, really nice, and probably the first 8K rather, really nice and runnable rainforest, mostly single track. It's a lot of, you're kind of running around almost the rim of the range, sort of, it's Mount Jerusalem and the

[14:37] Nightcap National Park, beautiful. So for a lot of that first ten, probably 20K, you've got Mount Warning to your right, and you're running right on that ridgeline looking at some incredible views. You have to run up to the ridge. And this is the thing, between 10K and 20K I bonked, I got properly, I remember the feeling, for me when my body goes through this it's a really cold sweat that hits, a bit of a shake and

[15:07] a real cold sweat, a little bit of a tingle, and just power hiking, hands on knees, leaning forward, and there's a lot of stairs, similar for anybody out there who's done UTA50, a lot of similarities, because there were just sections where you're grinding up stairs. Good training, actually, if you're a Gold Coast or northern NSW based runner planning on doing UTA50, go and run this track, perfect training. And then at about 20K I was properly

[15:41] cooked. Dave's running, Rosie's running UTA Kosciuszko 100, so he was really experimenting with his nutrition, he'd brought a lot of stuff, so he was kind of feeding me and brought me back to life. Has he been over overseas with the kayaking recently? Not with Battle Australia anymore, but he is running really well. And then after 20Ks we hit the fire trail and I got a bit more flat running, a bit more downhill, and I came

[16:13] back to life as well. Incredible running, a lot of it a bit like Springbrook, there were a lot of these switchback sections as well, similar to Springbrook, I felt like I was there at times. And then you break out into some more open fire trail type running as well, like up in Nerang. The parks had done a great job down there, they've done an amazing job, we were talking about the fact that the slabs, Dave couldn't get over how the hell anyone got these massive stone slabs in there, it's an amazing feat

[16:46] to actually carve out that track, great track, amazing experience. We did stuff up though, and for anybody that hasn't seen the reel, I threw it up on the In the Beginning Podcast Instagram, when we got to Minyon Falls, which is the finish line of this trail, we were at 32K and we'd only done about 1,200 elevation. We were like, how on earth did we miss 10K? We went back and had a look at the map, and day three of the hike you essentially cut in and

[17:20] do a hairpin loop, they throw in a bit of an extra dog-legged section, and we just missed it. We were on a fire trail and just ran past the turn. So we get to Minyon Falls having done 32K and I'm thinking, I've had enough. And Dave's like, well, it says it's 8.8 down to the bottom of Minyon Falls and back, let's just do that and tack it on and get to 40. And that climb, I've done that before, and it's not an easy climb out, it was brutal. And I want to have a go at these old ducks, and I

[17:53] probably don't listen to the podcast, but I want to have a go at the old ducks who, as we started the run down to Minyon Falls to get to the bottom, we went past this group of old ladies who had their walking sticks, clearly a bit of a hiking group. And one of them, and this is the state I was in, said, don't worry, there's a coffee shop at the bottom. I believed her. There was a good three seconds where

[18:23] honestly, my brain went, oh, coffee shop, that's amazing, that'll be so, oh my God, we're in the middle of nowhere, of course there's not going to be a coffee shop. I believe that shows how cooked I was. But for anybody out there that loves trail running, if you can't do 40Ks in a day, well, you can do 30 if you cut that little section off, just an incredible track. Mount Jerusalem National Park, the Nightcap National Park, I think it's Wian Wian State Conservation Area as well.

[18:53] You would love it. And for those playing along at home, it took us about six and a half hours to do that 42. So Courtney, you'd probably punch it out at about five. So you reckon you'd go out and back? This is your brain, 'cause Dave, Rosie said the same thing at the end, he's like, so you reckon you'd go out and back in a day? I'm like, why are we talking about this, I can't concentrate. There's some good point-to-point runs, the other one up in the Scenic Rim Trail, I reckon's another great one. Well, there was the Guzzler on not long ago, wasn't there, that was up in the Scenic Rim.

[19:26] In the Scenic Rim, Guzzle, I think, out the back of Brisbane, I could be wrong, I lose track of everywhere. I'm gonna get hate here from the Brisbane trail runners, but when I hear about a trail race out the back of Brisbane, I just put the old headphones on and don't listen, because the terrain out there is just always up and down fire roads, I mean there's some single track in there here and there, but I've never, if someone

[19:57] knows, if someone wants to tell me where, I haven't had a great experience running out on the west side of Brisbane. Go out to the Scenic Rim, of course, but actually Brisbane trails themselves, not so much. But in short, incredible day out on the track. I went with the Salomon Ultra Guides. Oh, you did? Good choice, perfect for me for where my running's at for that many hours on my feet.

[20:28] Did they go alright? Because you would've gone over a bit of slick rock here and there. Yeah, there was a bit of wet, did the grip go alright? Yeah, the grip was good. That was, but we're talking about river crossings and that sort of stuff, we didn't have any water crossings as such, but mud running, that's the one thing, I did have a go at Rosie about that, he was dancing around it and Rosie's a bigger fella, I was straight through, you know how people come to those muddy, sodden sections and try to dance around the edges, and I'm just like, we'll just run through the

[20:59] middle. Generally, if you're going to cop the first one, there's going to be more, so just deal with it, get in there. That trail, I would highly recommend. So you're on a high? Good running, how far did you run other than that? Did you do any other running? That made it 50 for the week, but since then, and I basically, because in my head I did that on a Wednesday and I thought I'll throw another run in and that

[21:31] I'll get through 60 plus Ks this week. In the end I opted to rest because I was quite sore through the quads and hamstrings after that run. I went and had a massage actually at Riggs Recovery in Palm Beach after the fact, and there was a little bit of miscommunication between Hallie, who was doing the massage, I was telling her about this trail and she thought I'd done it the weekend before, so she was going quite hard. And about 45 minutes in, I was telling her, she was asking a

[22:04] question about the trail, and I said, oh yeah, Wednesday, she said, wait, you went on Wednesday? I said, yeah. She goes, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I thought this tightness and soreness was like a week old, that's why I've been pushing so hard, it's 48 hours old. I'm like, no, it's OK, but still, good for you. And then the other thing is, despite the fact I'm not racing anything else this year, I'm still trying to build to that sub-40-minute 10K.

[22:34] And the session I'm essentially prioritising is a speed session, because remember when we talked about this, I said how long do you think it would take me to get back, your question was, it depends how long it takes you to build speed. I think the answer is it takes me a long time. So I've been working on a 400 set, 20 minute warmup into twelve by 400s. OK, so it's twelve by 400s. Did you hear my, with, the way you

[23:05] responded meant I must have said something wrong. I did not, twelve by 400s with a minute recovery in between, or minute walking essentially, and then five minutes cool down. OK, that's the set, I've been doing Mondays for the last three or four weeks. I reckon, because in the end, the 400s, there's a purpose to them with the full rest, but my gut tells me I'd still prefer to see you doing, I think it was out

[23:36] of Deek's book, it was a Pochesi-style session, which now I'm going to forget it, but I think it was eight by 400s with a 200 float. But the float is actually quite, you keep it on, now have you seen 400s, so if you said eight by 400s, what's that in, come on, I want to get this right, eight by 400 at 4.8Ks, yeah, OK. So the theory behind this session is you run it on a track, 400 into a 200 float.

[24:07] And the float is, you're still keeping your pace through it, you're rolling through, what time you'd do for that 4.8 will be about equivalent of what you should be aiming for your 5K. So it's a fartlek session that goes over-pace, under-pace, over-pace, under-pace. But it's always said to be a guide as to what you'd then be able to run a time trial in for a 5K, because you're not allowing yourself to have that

[24:37] full recovery between the 400s, because then you can go off sprinting again into another 400, and another 400. This way it's like putting you into a bit more of a race situation, where you've got to recover under a bit of duress. OK, so at the moment, doing this yesterday, I was kind of bothered by rep 11 and rep 12, I think I was cooked, for sure, and I've been aiming for 3:40 pace, trying to keep it under 3:40 pace, which I've

[25:07] been doing. But you're saying the better set, or the more beneficial set, is instead of going twelve by 400 with a one minute walk, doing eight by 400 with a 200 metre float? Yep, and the 200 metre float will stop you over-pacing yourself, 'cause it'll start to dictate the pace you can go, and you'll try to do that all even, like the session itself will actually, what's the word I'm looking for, it'll actually stop

[25:40] you going out and going too hard, because when you take four rest you'll run out again fast. I have been doing that, but then when you go to run a 5K, you've got no speed-based resiliency, because you've just been doing more lactic work running the 400s, versus doing that fartlek 400 session with the 200 float, you're actually probably preparing your body to run the 5K time trial better, which then eventually will layer up to the

[26:10] 10K. There's a number of different ways you can do this, other people would go out and do like 24 by 400 with the rest, but you're running them not for speed, you're running them to hold a consistent pace. So OK, well, I'm gonna mix it up, do one week the twelve by 400, then try this. But that's a guide, because if you start to get

[26:40] more resilient and your speed base gets better, that 4.8K worth of track session each week will progress you, and I want to see progression. And here's what I'll say, I wouldn't necessarily be happy with progression, and you saying, oh well, now I'm just running 400s quicker with dead rest, that's not going to equate directly. This is great, because when I first tried one of these twelve

[27:10] by 400s, I got through about six and a half, I was done, I hadn't done speed work since maybe before Kunanyi, and I couldn't get through, I'm like, OK, this is going to take some time. Next week it was eight and a half, and then as I said yesterday, I got through sort of eleven. But I think now with the pivot to what you're talking about, I'll try this eight by 400 with the 200 float. I mean, if you'd said to me the 400s

[27:41] like, oh, I sent you up Kunanyi, well, jumping into 400s with full rest, unless you're really being conscious of what you're doing, to me that's also a recipe for twinging. So with that in mind, I want some more, this is great, I love this, and if anybody out there is calling bullshit, no, no, no, no, I was gonna say if anybody out there is trying for something similar in terms of trying to improve their 10K, I'm not claiming this one, but

[28:12] if you read Deek's book, this was a weekly session, even for the marathon that he was doing. Couple of questions, firstly, if I want to run sub-40 minutes for 10K, what pace should I be running those 400s in? Should I be running them 3:55 or 3:50? Well, you're faster.

[28:43] We're aiming for 5K pace. But I don't know what my 5K pace is, I guess my 5K pace, if I want to run the sub-40, I need to be running quicker than what I want to run 10K in for the 400. So I probably need to be running about 19 minutes for a 5K. Yeah, OK. I wasn't really listening, OK. So if I want to run a sub-40 for 10K, I need to run a sub-19:05. I can't, you're putting me on the spot on this one, I'm not gonna start making calls on 40-minute times and

[29:16] runners' paces, I don't know the times you're talking about off the top of my head, they're slow. Next question. At the moment all I'm doing is kind of slow, 5-minute-plus-per-K sort of longer runs, sort of 11 to 15K runs, and that

[29:46] one session a week. Should I throw in a tempo run there too? I think you're going to need more than the one session. But a good balanced week is to have the long run, some type of, you know, threshold-y type tempo run however you want to do it, and then some type of more, when I say speed again, not coming back to doing flat-out 400s, but some type of speedy-orientated fartlek

[30:17] or whatever you want to do. I'm back to that little part of my running brain that's scared of speed again. Another way to look at it, you obviously like doing something like those 400s, well mix it up with going and finding a slight gradient hill, not too much, you know, three to five percent, and do some reps up there and jog back down, and it's just changing the variety of what you're adding to it. But the strength element of running up the hill a bit faster

[30:48] as well. I know I've got the hill near me, I know exactly the one I need to be running, and I need to throw it in, I'm scared of hills though now, just the idea of running up them. Even a hill of two to three percent is a lot different to run. I think I'm mentally fragile at the moment, I think my running-wise I'm mentally fragile. So did you go to the track to do the 400s? No, when I go and do these 400s, I'm not doing them at the track, I'm literally heading out from Currumbin and just doing it along the path.

[31:19] Just going off the watch. That's more fartlek-ing than track work, that's where my running is at currently. Well, that sounds good, everything's moving forward. Hey, City2Surf, let's talk about it, last weekend, far out the weather looked horrible, I'm glad I wasn't there. I'm so, I don't think it made it necessarily, Isaac Hayne took it out in

[31:50] the men's race, and gave Sam Clifford, who's a 10K, no slouch, broke the 10K Australian record, a bit of a bunch-up, hasn't he, almost a minute. What was it in the end, a 51 second gap between Isaac and Sam. So it's interesting, the kind of field they get at City2Surf, you haven't got any of the main kind of Melbourne

[32:21] big hitters out of the Melbourne track clubs or anything, is it an NSW field? I don't know, Tom Decanto's definitely out of Sydney, I'm not so familiar with all these. I bet Bronte Oates as well, taking out the women's race at a good time too, 45:51. I'll tell you why, she would have given a lot of the men a bit of a scare, that's fast, isn't it, that's proper quick, 45:51. She also took out, remember the Red Bull flying

[32:51] sprint I was talking about, I wanted to hear about this. Yeah, it was interesting, 'cause we were interested to see whether the leaders just took it out or whether someone came out of the woodwork for the K. Now Bronte did win, I'm just looking at the results of that one, Colombo was 1:04, a kilometre split, and she went through with a time of 3:23, so she was seven seconds ahead of Ruby Smair, who I think won the 10K at Gold Coast, right?

[33:22] Where did she end up? Ruby came third overall in the women's race. In the women's race, pretty much the leaders have come out on top, but in the men's, Isaac didn't take it out, Cam Merrick has obviously given that K section a touch up, he must have wanted his trip to Japan, going through in a 2:52 split versus Isaac going through in a 2:57, versus the group behind him going through in just over three minute pace.

[33:53] How do you spell his surname, Merrick? M-E-double R-I-C-K, Merrick. I'm looking him up, I'm curious to know what his overall finish was, if he took out, oh, he's still run a sharp time, he's run a 46:33. But everybody's been in that front group, no, to do that, or maybe he ran out there with the front group, because that's a great time, and to be able to still win the split, you're gonna have to

[34:24] be a bloody good runner. Yeah, but this is what it was put on for, for someone if they really wanted to hold back a little bit and get, that's incredible, and get the chocolates. That's cool, so Cam Merrick taking out the men's and Bronte Oates taking it out. As long as they've obviously gone to the website and done all the T's and C's and everything else you need to do with putting on any type of competition, they're off to Japan, they're off to Japan to go and run up a 400 metre

[34:55] ski slope, you could go up there and do some of your training as well. I'm off to Japan at the end of the year, I'll talk about that as we get there. Now, City2Surf, the thing I hypothesised and wondered about, what would we see from an activation standpoint, what would we see as far as the Sydney Marathon becoming a major this year and the running boom, I feel like this is the first edition of the race right in the heart of this running boom, I didn't see a lot of new stuff,

[35:28] but I still did see some. What'd you see? The Adidas activation down at Bondi at the finish line, the Rebel Sport activation down at Bondi, they're all partners of the event. I feel like that finish line area has grown, has become more of a precinct, because in years gone by, when I've run it, you kind of just finish and there'd be some tents maybe set up. They've always had the corporate areas, so a good example would be, so Doctor Ben, he had a

[35:59] run, I'll give you a story of what a backpacker, like someone who can run but starts at the back of the pack, what their experience is like. He said he ran and ended up finishing in the 50s, can't remember the exact time, he said he was up on the footpath. I said, oh, did you go through the Red Bull 1K? He said yeah, I did, but I went behind the activation because I had to run through a section, he got there early, started at the front of one of the back sections, he said when they let us

[36:31] go, they let us go 100 metres into the back of another section and it was just chock-a-block the whole way. So he still had a good run, but Ramsay Health, they've got a big activation, barbecue and drinks and everything else at the end of it. I think it's those corporate type organisations that really make the most of it as far as activations go. Yep, I like it. Look, I think the timing of it is interesting as well, with Sydney Marathon less than a

[37:01] month away, you think brands had to make a choice, do we put our dollars in here or put our dollars in there. I do, and I think with Sydney being a major for the first time this year, I think we saw most of them make the decision that the major is where we will be, executing as it were. The way I still look at it is City2Surf is the people's run, so the runners, you'll get people at the marathon, but marathon runners are runner-runners. I still think there's a lot of people who go into your city runs,

[37:31] and not just City2Surf, Bridge to Brisbane and all that, who aren't runners, like they don't even consider themselves runners, they're just going out for the day, and you see those back-markers in the field just walking, having a day out in Sydney. I suppose the brands have maybe chosen to go for the runner-runners. I always question that, because depending on what product you've got, it might actually make more sense to be talking to the masses, because if you go to every marathon and you keep

[38:01] going to the main runs or the track meets, eventually you're talking to the same people the whole time. Sydney, City2Surf, my gut feeling is that half the back half of that field, they're not the runners you'll get exposed to at those marathons, completely different audience. Completely agree, yeah, completely agree. And that's an opportunity that's missed by some. Hey, this will roll off the back of this really nicely,

[38:32] I want to show you, I'm impressed, this is great to see. We've talked about how similar running has got in activation and everything else, big call out to Columbia here, the outdoor brand that's been around for years and years. This is what we're starting to see brands turn to. I don't know if this has got to do with the US, but I think nature's actually like this. We'll put the video up with

[39:08] the proper sound, but what you're seeing is like snakes fighting people outdoors, the Grim Reaper chasing runners, that's the guy, Aron Ralston. That's what Columbia, 'engineered for everything nature can throw at you', pretty proper outdoors, hey? Good on you, Columbia, for whatever that is, an engineered, excellent, that's great. I'm hoping this is the start of something,

[39:41] more diversity stylistically. No, not that diversity, but they've just gone against the grain and gone, this is what we represent, we're an outdoor brand, we're tough and we're going to show it that way. That's cool, that's really cool, I like it, bloody oath I like it. I'm hoping some of the other brands start going this way, because if I see one more low shutter speed runner sitting in an urban environment, it's been done.

[40:18] This has got a little bit of comedy to it, it's real, it's got the backflipping skis, again this is great, good on you Columbia, well done Columbia, I like it. Talking about people doing different things, Kilian Jornet, I know you're a fan, arguably a fan, one of the greatest endurance athletes in the history of the world, anything that's hard and takes a long time to do, he does better than almost anybody. I wanted to get your thoughts on what he's kicking off next month.

[40:48] Have you seen his North American, his first North American adventure that he's taking on? No. Kilian Jornet next month, in September, will launch States of Elevation, his first major North American project, the goal is to summit every 14,000-foot peak, that's roughly 4,000 metres, in the continental US, travelling only by foot or bike. He's going to start at the long peaks in Colorado and finish on Mount Rainier in

[41:19] Washington. The route will span alpine ridges, forest and desert terrain, following his previous long-distance traverses in the Pyrenees and Alps, combining endurance, navigation and exploration over weeks of continuous movement. So he's basically spending however long this takes, I don't know how many summits there are over 14,000 feet, I'm just trying to think of the skier, Cody, let me see if I can find him. Cody Townsend does something

[41:50] similar, been skiing, what's he got, what height were you talking about, 14,000 feet? So he does the 50-plus, and he's been going around skiing down all these mountains, but he did it over time, obviously driving to them. OK, so continental, this is interesting, and this is where you've got to double check things. There are 94 mountains in the

[42:21] United States that exceed 14,000 feet in elevation, according to Wikipedia, and they're all located, or nearly all, in the state of Colorado. So Cody, I'm just looking up Cody, he was doing, he was doing the 50 classic ski descents, a bit different. OK, so there are a lot in Alaska too, I didn't think there'd be so many in Alaska, but it looks like Colorado basically has the most. How's he going to be doing

[42:51] this, I wonder. This is incredible, if you take out the ones in Alaska, he's going to be climbing somewhere in the vicinity of 70 mountains, all with elevation above 4,000 metres, and he's only going by foot or bike, so presumably he's going to climb over them on his feet and then ride in between them on his bike, or go up and come back down to his bike, I suppose.

[43:23] He loves an adventure, doesn't he, he's done some amazing stuff. We now live in a world where this is someone's job. This is one of those things people are going to probably tear me down for, he has the right to go out and do it, you know where I'm going with it. He went off, and I think it was, did he go back to

[43:53] Hardrock or Western States? Western States, we talked about him the other day, he went back after all those years and still placed third. The guy is the best endurance athlete in the world, in that outdoor space, he can go and do whatever he wants, he can come back and race and he's still great too, he can do whatever he wants. And the beauty of what, you said earlier on I was a big fan, why I'm such a fan is he's got both sides of it, he's not just a racer, he then goes off and does his

[44:24] mountaineer, adventurer thing, but then comes back and is the best of the runners as well. Yeah, he's a star, and there's something worth following if you love your real ultra endurance stuff. Kilian Jornet's States of Elevation is what the project's called, kicks off next month. Now let's have a little bit of fun, we're going to bring back a segment, it's going to be on you, and then I'll let you have a go at me. Does anybody actually know what Hyrox is short for?

[44:57] Because I've just found out, and don't get me wrong, I don't want to do a Hyrox, they look really hard, hats off to you if you've done one, but this makes you want to do one even less. Hyrox is short for Hybrid Rockstar. Oh no, I've got the ick, literally any video of Hyrox I see from now on I'm just going to cringe. Oh no, you've been called out, Liam.

[45:30] Hybrid Rockstar, is that really what it stands for? Someone commented, Australia's first water sommelier also said Hyrox rockers... sorry, what was that? This came from a comment, someone said, Australia's first water sommelier, I love when you try a word, what is it, sommelier, yeah, it's like a French, is it someone who walks you through the wine list at a restaurant? Oh right, so a water sommelier, so they're a connoisseur of water. Yep, anyway, keep swimming, that's what he said.

[46:00] Don't do it, her or him. Maddie also chimed in, jumping on the Hyrox because it's the new play toy, all the shirts off and the pretty girls, Liam. I'm not taking my shirt off, I'm not in shirt-off shape, I'm not insured. I just wanted to, we're going to wrap this up now, but just to put the nail in the coffin, I'm not doing Hyrox. You're not doing it now? I feel attacked. So Jen, shout out Jen, posted this, I hadn't

[46:33] heard of this, but it's called Trust Fund TNs. What's the Urban Dictionary definition of a Trust Fund TN? Noun, pair of Salomon sneakers, also known as the Ford Ranger sneakers, expensive, worn by inner-city types that have never gone off-road in their life. A trendy shoe worn by the matcha latte drinkers, Strava-stress trail runners and private school kids that went to arts

[47:05] college. Well, I didn't go to arts college. Then the final nail in the coffin for me was, see also Fitzroy steel caps or Shubaroos. So not only was I getting attacked on Salomon, am I a walking billboard for, that is you all over, am I a walking billboard for the inner-city type that's never gone off-road in their life? No, that's not what you are. That's not really. That's good, that's what I'm genuinely about to

[47:35] use it in a sentence. So they needed to buy a new pair of AirPods, so he put on his Trust Fund TNs and went hiking to Mount Warning. That's not you, that was Subaru. Well, it was, I was giving it to you, I thought I'd get something bad. That's good. And, now the other thing you put on the run sheet, which I do want to run through, is what your shoe says about you. We've done this before, but this is a new one I saw, this is a good one from Bolton Ben on Instagram, let's just go through, we don't need to go through all

[48:05] the shoes, but let's go through the highlights. The old man shoes, I refer to them, the Brooks, if you run in Brooks, this is what Bolton Ben says you are as a runner: you don't care what the shoe looks like, you want arch support, toe box real estate and a shoe that feels like a weighted blanket, your pace is consistent, so is your Spotify playlist, it's all Coldplay. Oh, that's perfect. Yes, that's how I think of Brooks runners. I like the toe box real estate, I'll tell you that. ASICS, and I'll consider myself an ASICS runner.

[48:36] Yep, because it's the shoe I'm mostly running in. You still call it jogging, but you're also weirdly fast and injury free, so not me, you probably own a compression sock casually. We've identified that. Yep. Our old friend Brendy Langbrook, who runs in Sauconys, you're that quiet runner who absolutely demolishes people on hills, you don't talk about shoes, you just float past people and say 'nice pace'. Which is pretty much what it was. Why did you buy them? Well, they look nice, some of the new rubber I'm

[49:06] hearing in the Zuccone, whatever, I don't know what's come out yet, but they're really given that a big talk-up. OK, I like Puma too, if you run in Puma, this is what Bolton Ben says: you should say but you choose them for the colour, then accidentally became that guy in your gym who doesn't run but somehow wins Hyrox, your long run is 4.5 kilometres and it ends with sleds. Right, if you go down that route, mate, you'll see yourself in these. OK, let's keep going, these are good, Hoka, for those of you that are

[49:37] running in Hokas right now, your personality is 40% shoe cushion, you started running to manage stress, now you're two weeks away from buying trail poles and a van. That's so good, is there more? On is another one, you're not sure if you're a runner or an interior designer, but the shoes look aesthetic in your doorway, bonus points if your jogs end at a café called Something and Sons. Nike, a lot of Nike runners out there, you say it's just the most

[50:09] comfortable, but let's be real, you saw Kipchoge wear them and blacked out at checkout, you don't run races, you run ads for Nike. That is true, that is my brother, he doesn't, well, he does run races, but he also runs out for Nike. That's the new Vomero, yeah, it's a good looking shoe. Quick, I should do Adidas, because I run in these Boston 12s, and that's what the picture of the shoe is, having a trial of these too. So Adidas, in the club you're all about performance and proving it, you wear Boston 12s to parkrun and call it race pace

[50:40] practice, you've definitely DM'd someone about their cadence. On the elite side, that's good. Gee, Mizuno, I don't even know, it's a sharp heel. There's no New Balance in there? New Balance didn't get a shout, come on New Balance, you've got to lift your game. What was I, I had something, we just mentioned it and it's disappeared from my brain, about shoes, it's gone away. I had something to talk to you

[51:11] about, this Runner's World mag, I saw this on Insta, they put a post up saying, they didn't show the article, they just said scientists prove shoe rotation lowers injury risk. That's interesting. Makes sense, give the rubber time to rest and change it up a bit. Sure, is your collection holding you back? I mean, their job is to sell shoes. That's a good point, I was thinking, of course I'm going to keep telling you that if I want to sell you

[51:41] a body of shoes. We've got some listeners jumping in, and again, if anybody's out there and you've got questions, throw them in, now that we don't have any races that we're preparing for, we've always got time to jump into your questions. Bailey Hibbert has hit us up, says hey boys, loving the pod. 'You know running is at its peak when the bots have infiltrated Strava, giving you kudos.' This is an interesting one, Sexy Sophie is the username, it looks like when you click into the wrong website.

[52:13] We've all been, we've all gotten the random friend request or the notification on a social media platform, and you've opened it up and gone, this is clearly a bot, this is clearly a fake account someone's using to scam my information. This one's got 0 followers, 0 following. So Bailey has been followed by a profile called Sexy Sophia, and then it says, in confidence, I want to share with men a site

[52:44] where many women are looking for sex and relationships, and then a link. This is who Bailey now has following him, and as he points out, running's at a peak when the scammers have said, oh, we should go to Strava. Wonder if any of my followers have. While Liam's looking down, Josh McNabb wrote in, love the pod guys, always my go-to on long runs, I feel your pain Liam, that Strava story you told about getting robbed. He was robbed by, listening to the podcast.

[53:16] On the exact topic, I was hunting a KOM on Strava that I'd been eyeing off for a while, my run got back, thinking he's got the crown, uploaded it and it was corrupted. You put the jinx on him. Oh, stitch up, that's unlucky. What else, more about Liam while you're finding out more about Liam here. JDH Rodin, hi, Jan's been listening to the episode 45 with Liam, struggles to run early in the morning after his radio, new role in the morning radio, I have the same issue.

[53:47] He's always been an early runner, but moved to Cairns a year ago, his job has him working until midnight or later, he's had to become a late morning runner. Oh Jesus, in Cairns that's not going to be good. Even when he's got the time and gets to bed early, he finds he can't bring himself to run early anymore. Today's run, he went out and did a nine K easy pace run with a one K effort to get a new Strava crown, a lot of Strava. Not a Strava hater out there, PS love the pod, I don't think I've got any bots

[54:19] following me on there. Ryan Deegan, oh mate, everyone's loving, given you plenty with, just feedback, supporting me because I get injured. This is for Liam and his Nike Vaporflys, I was at my daughter's regional athletics carnival the other day, and as parents we want to think our kids are better, all that, but there was a dad there who

[54:49] was wearing Vaporflys just like joggers, and every time I saw him I thought he wanted to race, all I could think about during the day was Liam thinking he's not worthy of wearing his, and he's a dad wearing them around an athletics carnival like joggers. I never want to become that guy. Ollie Harvey hit us up, Ollie says, I got the Sauconys, the, he hit us up before the marathon and he was running in the Saucony Endorphins, but he messaged us just the other week

[55:21] saying, gents, just went for my first run since GC Marathon and I'm being dead serious when I say 10 kilometres felt harder than the marathon a week ago. In fairness, I've been drinking wine in Victoria all week, but did generally want to know if there's anything to the post-marathon running being hard. Thought it might be a good question for anybody in the same boat. We've kind of hit on this a little bit, I think. I mean, it gets hard, essentially, yes. I was out running up at the Spit trails this morning doing some two-minute efforts with a one-minute float, with the Gold Coast Runco group.

[55:52] And it's interesting because a lot of them have come back from the marathon, some are tired, some haven't got over it, some might have gone a bit early. The ones who rested, who didn't overcook themselves at the marathon, had a good build and then rested properly and come back, they found when they first came back there was a little bit of, my brother was one of these too, they've come back, they found it was a little bit hard at first, but then they've gone through that super-compensation because they've given themselves enough rest and they're on a new level.

[56:23] When I talk about a new level, that's what periodising, we talked a lot in the early episodes about periodising your training and going from strength to strength to strength, and that's when you get it right, that's how your body works. There's nothing, you can rest about any of this, isn't there, you can still feel like crap while it's starting to, you know you're recovering, you're recovering, but when it happens, the magic happens. Can I give a shout out to this guy doing it in his own way, local Gold Coast fella Koopi

[56:53] Kupitala, have you come across Koopi? A bit of background, when Nedd Brockman went on his Milk Run when he first launched it, driving the van and doing runs in cap cities, he came through Newcastle and all the way up to the Goldie. I went up and did Nedd's run out of Burleigh, and just running along I met and started running with this fellow called Koopi, having a chat, and at the time I think he was on a streak of about, he'd almost run

[57:28] a year consecutively, every day, he'd gotten into running because he was a bit flat, mental health stuff that a lot of people got into it for, so he was approaching a year of consecutive running. Currently he's at 904 days running every day, the last 428 days have been 10K

[57:59] plus, and as of yesterday, our day of recording, he just finished 42 marathons back to back, all back to back, 42 marathons back to back, going out every day, did a marathon every day for the last 42 days. What's he doing for a job? I think he's still working, back, because when I first met him, he and his family were about to embark on a kind of a travel-around-Australia thing, they'd rented out the house and

[58:30] they were just packing up the car and travelling, and they were about to have another baby, so that's why they've come back to the Gold Coast. Apologies, I don't actually know what he does for a job, but he is still working, he's getting out, he's been doing his marathons mostly at night after he gets home. Wow, that's dedication. Yeah, shout out to him, he's a ripping fella, always got a big smile on his face, and he just completed this awesome challenge. Big shout out to Koopi, 42 marathons back to

[59:01] back, nice work. Now before we go again, we just want to remind everybody, if for whatever reason you've managed to get here without hearing the start of the podcast, Sydney's major marathon, the TCS Sydney Marathon, we're going down to Sydney for the marathon, we're going to be there on the Friday before the race thanks to AG1, go and follow the Instagram account, Drink AG1 AU, make sure it's the Australian one, the AU account, and they'll be releasing information on how you can get involved with their shakeout

[59:32] run, which is happening on the Friday down at Bondi, and then the live recording of In the Beginning Podcast, where you and I, Courtney, will be at Bondi Icebergs dining room talking to one of AG1's nutritionists about the product, but also with Australian marathon record holder Andy Buchanan. Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing from the dietitian nutritionists around the product, understand a little bit more about it. Just to talk about AG1 for a moment, I use it now,

[01:00:02] I really have, I've made it, it's just part of my morning routine now and I really like it. But I remember when Rich Roll and Joe Rogan were advertising it, and I remember this is before I started using it, and podcasting was such a new frontier then, and the brands that seemed to embrace advertising on podcasts early were kind of, not renegades, but sort of pioneers in a sense, that seemed to be searching for their niche

[01:00:34] audience to find it. It's a Kiwi company though, right? Yeah, it's a New Zealand company. So yeah, it's a fascinating business, and I think when you see athletes like Andy and Mick Fanning involved now as well, clearly it's a product that they get behind, and it must be working. Well, we're looking forward to that one, it's gonna be fun, we're gonna be down there. Subscribe, like, comment, share it with your friends, we want to continue embracing the running boom and maybe we'll start bringing a bit of diversity of our own to our reels.

[01:01:04] Courtney, our Columbia, the outdoor mob. We'll see you next week. See you next week.