> ## 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. # Best Marathon Training Tips: Highlights From The 2025 Gold Coast Marathon Series | EP 84 - URL: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ep-84-best-marathon-training-tips-highlights-from-2025-gold-coast-marathon-serie/ - Published: 2026-05-01T06:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-21T01:32:05.000Z - Description: Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on nutrition, Gold Coast Marathon, heart rate training — recorded on the Gold Coast. - Author: Courtney Atkinson - Tags: Episodes, Gold Coast Marathon, Sports Science, Strava, #Import 2026-07-28 20:58 *Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on nutrition, Gold Coast Marathon, heart rate training — recorded on the Gold Coast.* *This "best of" episode pulls together the strongest training advice from across the 2025 Gold Coast Marathon Series, recorded partly while Courtney was travelling through Europe. It opens on pacing: what to do when an AI-generated goal pace stops matching how a session actually feels, and why chasing a number instead of trusting feedback from the body derails more marathon blocks than it saves. From there the conversation moves through the practical scaffolding of a marathon build — gradually increasing long-run volume rather than forcing it, treating an "hour run" as an hour-and-twenty once warm-up and cool-down are accounted for, and the specific structural work (calf raises, hip and ab stability) that prepares a body for the repeated impact of 42.2 kilometres.* *Nutrition gets equal billing: the non-negotiable pillars that let a body actually repair itself between sessions, and why race-morning fuelling (not just black coffee) matters more than most first-timers expect. There's a candid segment on what changes when an athlete from a different sport — a former elite swimmer, for instance — switches to running and has to relearn how their body absorbs load. It closes with race-day tactics: staying with your pack early rather than surging, and using the Gold Coast course's landmarks — Ferry Road, the bridges, the blue line — as mental checkpoints when the legs get heavy late in the race.* ## In this episode - Why does an AI-generated pace goal stop matching how the run actually feels? - How do you build long-run volume without forcing it too soon? - What changes in your body when you switch sports — like swimming to running? - Which nutrition pillars actually let your body repair itself mid-block? - What race-day fuelling and pacing mistakes catch out marathon first-timers? - How do you use the Gold Coast course itself as a mental tool late in the race? ## Timestamps - **\[01:12\]** When an AI-generated pace goal stops matching how the session feels - **\[06:03\]** Building long-run volume gradually instead of forcing it - **\[31:31\]** What changes when a swimmer's body switches to running - **\[38:06\]** The nutrition pillars your body needs to actually repair itself - **\[44:43\]** Calf raises, hip and ab stability for marathon-impact readiness - **\[51:06\]** Why an "hour run" is really an hour and twenty once you count the extras - **\[57:22\]** Race-morning fuelling beyond just black coffee - **\[01:11:40\]** Race-day pacing: staying with your pack through the first 10K ## Listen ## Related In The Beginning episodes - [In The Science Lab At Southern Cross University](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/gold-coast-marathon-series-in-the-science-lab-at-southern-cross-university/) — the sports-science deep dive behind some of these training tips - [Benita Willis — Half Marathon Focus](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/benita-willis-half-marathon-focus-gold-coast-marathon-series-2026/) — elite pacing and race-day strategy from a three-time Gold Coast Marathon winner - [Gold Coast Marathon Series 2026: We're Back](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/gold-coast-marathon-series-2026-were-back/) — the next block picks up where these tips leave off - [The Gold Coast Marathon guide](https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/gold-coast-marathon/) ## Full transcript Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps approximate. Hosts: Courtney Atkinson & Liam Flanagan. **Read the full transcript** \[00:00\] In the beginning, podcast episode 84\. Now you're thinking, why is Courtney doing the intro this week? Well, I've ended up in Europe of all places — I'm sitting here in Salzburg at the moment, here for the week. And as much as Liam and I love having a chat, we don't like doing it online. So this week we're bringing you something different. With the Gold Coast Marathon series in full swing for 2026, we thought: why not bring back the best of the highlights from the 2025 series with Benita, with Michael Shelley, with Britt Kayling, so you can get on the front foot as you head into the final few \[00:41\] months of the Gold Coast Marathon. There's a little bit here for everyone. For beginners, we talked to Bronte last year and she had an amazing result, so I'd be following along there. And for those trying to run three hours, or even quicker, there are some great tips, hints and reminders of what you should do as you approach your marathon and half-marathon builds heading toward the Gold Coast Marathon, or any other races along the way. \[01:12\] So let's jump in. There'll be people — delusional people, like me — who've set themselves a time goal for the Gold Coast Marathon and structured a 12-week plan. Some of them, unlike me, who has a professional like you to speak to in person, will have jumped onto an online program, punched in a goal time, and had some AI spit out a program for them. They'll follow it unable to track progress or ask questions or reassess. \[01:46\] because they're not keeping up with the pacing and can't ask questions — it's just been spat out online. So if that's happening to someone, and it's telling them it's going to be incredibly tough, what sort of timeframe should people be reassessing their time goals at the start of a marathon block? Yeah, that's a good question. I really think in the first three or four weeks. \[02:17\] Because I think it's really disheartening to go through a marathon block and not be able to hit the paces — even if it's AI-generated — because then you don't feel like you're accomplishing anything. And when I say incredibly tough, I don't think it's unachievable. It might just take a few marathons, or some more training, some speed work, to get faster at the half marathon and 10K before you hit that sub-three-hour marathon. \[02:48\] Okay. I always look at — for your background, you've done a 1:28 half. In an ideal world you'd want to be running 1:23, 1:24, and have that sort of speed behind you, so that when you get into 4:15 pace, it feels slow. That's always my analogy. But coming into this program with 13 weeks to go, we're not going to be doing that sort of speed work, because we're straight into the marathon block. You want to be pumped about training, excited to get to the race, and have a goal that's achievable. So it's one of those things people come to me with all the time — I want to run this time. And I'm always realistic with people, because you have to be, but I'm also realistic that a running journey might take two, three, four years to reach a goal like that. I haven't been fit since 2012, when I ran the Olympics, and I haven't come close to a sub-three — a sub-three marathon is bloody hard. I know you know that, but it's incredibly tough. \[03:53\] So it might take a few years — but it might not. You might do it at Gold Coast. I think we try for what you want to do, and readjust as we go. I love that — that's amazing. This is equal parts terrifying and exciting, because Benita has literally, in the first five minutes, brought me straight back down to earth. She sure has. Absolutely wrecked me. \[04:25\] I had that same reaction the first time you said it to me. Why didn't you have the courage to warn me? Because I want to encourage you to keep doing this. What about somebody like Bronte, who's embarking on her first marathon? She's run a half before — what general advice would you give heading into this 12–13 week block? I think for a first-time marathon it's about getting through the program, enjoying the journey, and being excited to get to the start line and \[04:58\] get through the race. It's not about running sub-four hours in your first marathon — it's not about a time. I always think it's about the effort, enjoying the process, and getting that first one done with a really good experience. That means finishing feeling good, not walking the last 10K. Finish feeling good and thinking, I want to do another marathon — then you take a bit more risk and start looking at specific paces. So Bronte's program, a first-time marathoner's program, would be \[05:32\] a similar setup to what I'd give you, Liam, but not focused on specific paces — more time-based long runs. It's about practicing your nutrition and getting into that training structure, and just enjoying it, without doing too much. It's always about what you're currently doing, and as you get into that 13-weeks-to-go window, increasing training a bit while making sure you don't overdo it. A lot of beginners think, I've got to do a marathon, so I've got to run a marathon to do a marathon. \[06:03\] You don't need to do that — you just need to train, gradually increase your long-run volume, and get your training harder over time, but do it gradually. I do have a question, because I reckon people who are sitting right around that three-hour mark — the top end of the amateurs, really — trying to break three hours, would ask: is there a set weekly distance you'd need to hit to run a three-hour marathon? \[06:36\] Or doesn't it necessarily have to do with kilometres run? Yeah — I don't necessarily think so. I think the more you run, the better, to an extent, because we're all so busy. I've coached people who run seven times a week, get injured, and are running too much while trying to break three hours. And I've had others who run four or five times a week and can break three hours. So while you want to run as much as you can, if you're running too much, getting tired and injured and not training properly, that's a detriment \[07:09\] to the program. I don't have one set number — everyone's individual, and I decide based on the person. Generally, increasing mileage helps, but you have to do it over time. Say you're running 50–60K a week at the moment, Liam — ideally you'd want to be running a bit more, but that's balanced against the fact that I don't increase intensity and volume in the same week. \[07:39\] So one week we might increase mileage a bit, and the next week we increase intensity. By intensity, I mean — you're not doing many interval sessions, are you? Mostly thresholds and tempos. I think you need to be doing that every week. So if we're adding that into your program, I wouldn't be increasing your volume that same week — we'd look at volume the next week, then go back to intensity. I cycle through it, because if you increase everything at once — so, to your question Courtney, if you're increasing volume every week in a marathon block, that's \[08:12\] too much. I look at increasing those long runs every second week. And I call them "specific" sessions — we found Benita's trigger word: specific. It's marathon-paced efforts, getting longer as we go. Then the next week we'd make sure we're doing tempo runs focused on half-marathon pace and an interval session. So yeah, we want to be running more. When I was an athlete, I was running up near 200K a week. \[08:43\] But we're looking at people with jobs who are really busy, so it's about how we manage that volume into a busy schedule. Can you talk about the pressure, or the ways to be okay with missed sessions, or life getting in the way of this goal? That's a really good question — it's something we deal with every day with the people we coach. Don't get hung up on missing a session, missing a day, getting sick, or having a kid up sick all \[09:18\] night, leaving you exhausted. It's about overall consistency, not one particular session or day of training. I'm not one of those coaches who says you've got to make a missed session up later in the week — if you miss something, forget that day and keep going with the plan. I do schedule an easy week within the marathon block, which is really important to absorb the training and make sure you're not slightly overtraining. And part of training is recovery. \[09:50\] People with busy lives don't have time to rest properly during the day — they're working or looking after kids — so if you're not getting quite enough recovery, week in, week out, you're not fully absorbing the training. So we always schedule an easy week, usually with some sort of race, like a half marathon, at the end of it — or not; some people just need an easy week to absorb the training. That's worked really well for me, and only increasing long-run volume every second week is really good too. \[10:20\] So if you miss something, don't worry about it — it's about the overall picture, not any particular day. Even one training session isn't going to improve your time by ten minutes on its own. It's not about one session — it's about just doing the best you can. None of us can do this perfectly. Anyone I've coached has never followed the perfect plan. \[10:50\] If I wrote a plan twelve weeks ahead of time — which I don't, because I only write plans a week ahead, since life happens and I have to change things — that's why I don't program 12 weeks out. You can't lock yourself into a rigid structure like that, because what you're doing in six weeks might be different from a static plan you'd get online. That's why I'm not a big fan of those plans — training needs to \[11:20\] move with what you're actually doing. So don't stress if you miss something. I love that as a takeaway — this is the beauty of having a coach, being accountable to someone else. If it's just you, you compare kilometres, you obsess over things, but as soon as someone outside yourself says, "It's okay this week, you don't need to run, it doesn't have to be exactly right every week," you get confidence from that. I think that, whether you're running a marathon, a 10K, or doing any sport, is one of the biggest assets you can have. \[11:56\] Someone else to be accountable to — to take that pressure off yourself. That's what you'll have through this whole process. I can guarantee there are lights going off in people's heads right now thinking, "Benita sounds really nice, I'd love that" — honestly, maybe you're getting ahead of yourself here, Liam. No, no — I'm just saying, laceuprunning.com.au. I want to say that again: laceuprunning.com.au. If you're hearing Benita talk about her coaching mentality and attitude, go check it out. \[12:29\] laceuprunning.com.au. I'll keep coming back to this — with Strava especially, everyone's so concerned about having this perfect graph of progression, thinking that'll make them better. But the reality is, like you said, if you miss one session, you can't keep playing catch-up, or you end up injured. Yeah — and I'm not big on the idea of a perfect graph or anything like that. \[13:01\] It's all about how you feel and how much you're enjoying it — that's what leads to a good marathon, rather than perfect stats on Strava. So what should Liam, or I, be looking for each week to feel like we're ticking things off and progressing? I think if you can do your long run each week — that's probably the main session for a marathon program — plus one other session, an interval session or similar. \[13:31\] And then the easy days should just be really easy. I always say people run too hard on easy days — you've got to hold yourself back. If you're trying to break three hours, that's 4:15 pace, so your easy days should be five-minute Ks or slower. For first-timers, since we've discussed this before — how do you know what your easy pace should be? That's really hard — I usually look at what someone currently runs, then make sure their easy pace, once we structure sessions, is slower than that. \[14:08\] But I can guarantee most beginner runners, or people running their first marathon, are running too fast every day. So we want your hard sessions to be genuinely hard, and your easy sessions genuinely easy — you want that big variation in intensity. A lot of beginner runners have a flat graph because every run is the same pace. So I'll be telling them to slow down on their easy days. \[14:38\] And then we'll add in some small sessions — that's really fun for beginner runners, because a lot of them don't know what "sessions" even are. It'll be more feel-based than plugging in exact paces, though we put all our training on TrainingPeaks, so I can see what pace a beginner runner's running on their easy days and make sure it's slow enough. I'm aware niggles are going to come now — my calves are what's prone for me. Can you talk about recovery through a program and how to best manage that? \[15:10\] I think it's really important to have at least one or two easy weeks in the program, especially around races. If you're racing three to five weeks out, or doing a hard session, we ease off around it. If you're sore, especially after that 25K — I had an interval session planned for you tomorrow, but I'd say just jog. Recovery is also about not pushing it when you're a bit sore. Having said that, when I wrote the program, I didn't know you'd be quite this sore. \[15:43\] No, I've got to be honest, mate. And to progress, you can't — well, obviously you have this ideal program, but if you're a bit sore, and you've almost pulled a hamstring mowing the lawn, or you've got DOMS from a race, it'd be silly to do a hard interval session tomorrow — especially when you haven't done interval sessions much in the last few months. So I'd say jog, and the first harder session is the one on the weekend, for the long run. Honesty when you're coaching is so important, isn't it? \[16:14\] Because the nature of someone getting into a marathon, or wanting to run, is you want to do more and more. I'll always tell you before it's too late — the earlier you can get on top of these things, the quicker you can pull back, the more it saves you down the line. Exactly. I've made those mistakes as a runner — I've definitely trained too hard for marathons, and maybe I was at my best three or four weeks before the race, and then I'd get into that \[16:44\] hole where, when you train too hard, you keep going lower and lower into it. And once you're in the race, you feel like rubbish. We don't want to get into that spot. Is there anything you'd like to confess while we're offering an amnesty? A little bit — what I'd love to ask you guys, as seasoned runners: what am I doing wrong if I'm feeling things in my back, from the long run yesterday? \[17:15\] I'm weirdly niggly, and I don't know if it's because I'm too tense — I've never really had a coach look at my gait or how I'm running, so I don't even know if I'm running correctly. And if I'm getting pain in my back, I'm probably not running correctly, right? Well, I'd say first of all, anyone getting pain should see a physio or sports doctor. But sometimes when people get tired, they tense up, and that can give you pain that's not actually in your legs. \[17:46\] Do you know what I'm really enjoying? I found this with Courtney, and I'm finding it with Benita now too — unlike us in radio, who'll give our opinions on anything, whether qualified, justified, or asked for. I was about to say — well, that's your opinion, and I'd like to put mine forward after you finish talking. The interesting thing about what Benita just did there was say \[18:18\] "You're talking to an expert — I'm not an expert. I'm not going to tell you how to recover from this injury. I can coach your running, but I won't wade into areas outside my expertise." Courtney does something very similar. Whenever people have asked him for his opinion on how to train for something specific, he's said, I don't know how to train you for this — I know how to train myself, at my speed, with my body, but I can't. He said he couldn't coach you, Bronte. \[18:49\] In our very first chat, I felt like I was in trouble with the principal. He was like, "No, I'm not the trainer, I'm not the coach" — because that's what he said. He'd be well within his rights to at least offer an opinion, and he'd be very good at it, but I think we're similar in that we won't just say what we think if there's someone better placed to help. It's very responsible, very mature — that's why we do what we do. You'd be terrible at radio. \[19:19\] Sounds a bit boring — yeah, I'm too boring for radio. I think strength training is important. What are you sitting there smiling about? No, I was just watching you, not surprised. I keep coming back to this idea I never really appreciated as a beginner — you talked about someone over sixty, and just how little... what was the minimum amount you could run? Even some of those over-sixties are running once a week plus cross-training. I think so many of us, myself included, have gotten caught up in this over the years. \[19:50\] If you're only running, you want to overrun — you think you have to do so much more than you really do. But the takeaway is you can only control what you can do individually. You hear about all the different programs elites follow, all the sessions Liam sees mates doing on Instagram — you've really just got to come back to the fact that you're always better off being underdone and reaching the start line than being overdone. And I'm case in point right now, that's me. I'm loving hearing this. \[20:21\] Yeah — and I think too, when we're this busy, we have to always assume we'll be a little bit underdone, because it's not just the training that gets us, it's life. If I gave you the absolute perfect elite-athlete plan for the next thirteen weeks, it would be too much for you, because you've got stuff to do — kids, a job. So we have to slightly under-train everyone so they get to the start line ready to go. \[20:52\] Can you ask Benita next time how many weeks out from the race the biggest marathon session and the biggest volume week should be, and whether they're the same thing? I think the biggest long run I'd give would be somewhere between three and five weeks out — call it four. But there are often races around four weeks out, so it depends what people have planned. A half marathon four weeks out would be good, so your biggest long run might be three or five weeks out if you've got a half, and your volume four weeks out would be a bit lower if you're racing. \[21:26\] If you're not racing, I'd say the longest mileage and the biggest long run land in the same week. Yeah, that's what I'd do, because generally, if you're doing quite a hard long run, that week will be a bit higher, because the next week's usually a shorter, easier long run — but then I add a bit more intensity that week. I usually only set two sessions a week — for some beginners I might set, say for you Bronte, an interval session and an easy long run. \[22:00\] And then one week I give you a harder long run, I'll probably just give you an easy jog instead of an interval session — I break up your weeks. Whereas with Liam I'll always give an interval session, because he needs to be doing that. Some weeks a harder long run, other weeks an easy long run with a tempo run on another day. Usually just the one interval session — I'm not one of those coaches who gives more than one interval session a week. I think that's too much intensity for a marathon build, regardless of level — even my top elites. \[22:31\] Bronte — do you know what an interval session is? I was about to say, tell me about these interval sessions, because I have no idea what you're talking about — I just run. This is where I think I'm so lucky having you here, Benita, because I've been following different programs that included interval sessions, and I'd just skip them and run the distance instead. There'll be people out there following a twelve-week block right now who won't know what an interval session is either. \[23:02\] Courtney and I have talked about this on previous episodes of the main podcast, but it's worth a beginner's-guide moment here. When you say interval, what do you mean? Interval sessions are essentially running faster than jogging pace — even faster than marathon pace. What I had planned for you on Wednesday, Bronte, was something like a minute a bit harder than jogging, roughly 10K pace, then a minute walk or rest, then some 30-second reps a bit faster, around 5K pace. \[23:37\] Then maybe 45 or 60 seconds walking, then some 15-second efforts. It's really about breaking up the boredom of a longer run. Having said that, since you haven't done them before, your session is very small — a bit of a warm-up, a bit of a warm-down, just to get you into them. We'll probably look at doing them every second week. It's mainly so you get some practice running faster than marathon pace, so that when you're in the marathon — even though your aim is to run the whole way — \[24:09\] you're probably not even watching pace, it just makes whatever pace you're jogging at feel easier, because you can run faster for five or ten K when you need to. That's what we practice with these interval sessions. In my head, I love running, but I also just want to go as fast as I can and finish as fast as I can. Why do I need to learn to slow it down? Why can't I just go fast? \[24:39\] If you look at the Gold Coast Marathon, a lot of people start too fast. I always think — if your marathon pace is 6:30 or 6:45, and you start at 6:00 pace, you could hold that for a while, but you're producing a little lactic acid. I don't want to get too deep into the physiology, but that lactic acid builds and builds, and by 30K you suddenly feel awful. \[25:10\] You might feel good at the start, then all of a sudden your legs feel really heavy. That's going to happen in a marathon anyway, but if you start too fast, you'll probably end up walking, or hating it. You're better off starting slow — which is hard. We practice starting slow in training, because the marathon is one of those races that needs patience. Patience is really hard to train into people, but we'll work on it in the long runs. Starting slow means you're going to feel good in the second half. \[25:41\] I was always too aggressive in marathons — in my best marathon I positive-split by over two minutes, which is a lot. Something like 1:10 and 1:12\. So I wasn't great at it, but I learned from my own running and from the people I've coached: you're always going to run your best marathon when you don't go out too fast. It's going to be hard for you though, because you've got good speed over shorter distances, so it'll be tough not to start too fast. \[26:11\] We'll practice that. Do you have a layman's way of knowing when you're going "lactic"? What's the cue? You mentioned it earlier with the reps. What would you say is the sign you're going too hard? I always feel like when you're doing reps, if you get to the second half and you're struggling — your breathing's off, your legs feel heavy — in an interval session, that means you're going too hard. \[26:41\] You should be able to finish interval sessions and do a few more reps. You should be able to finish a tempo run, one of those marathon-paced efforts, and feel like you could do it again, almost. An interval session is harder than a marathon-pace long run, but you should still have a few reps left in the tank. It's hard to describe purely by feel, but it's that heavy-legs feeling — and look at your watch too. I always say go slower than you think — if you're at 5:00 pace or 4:45, you're probably going too hard. \[27:15\] Even if you could technically hold that pace for the session, you don't need to within the program. It's the hardest thing — accepting that running slow is good for you. Do you know what I think is partly to blame for that? Strava. We've talked about this before — the broader conversation about social media, which we don't need to get into fully here. Strava is great, \[27:47\] but it carries that inherent pressure of showing people how you're training. When everyone can see what you've done, there's that little voice saying, "But I ran so slowly here — I don't want people to think I'm a slow runner, I don't want them to think I can't run faster than this." I used to look at people I ran with in Sydney doing 4:15s and think, I can't go out and run a 10K at 5:15 today — I'm meant to be able to keep up with these people. \[28:19\] That's part of what I found difficult. I'm okay with it now, because I've accepted I'm never going to be a professional athlete, Bronte. I've come to that conclusion. I'll jump in here quickly with a reminder — if you've got questions about the marathon build, send them in, and we'll get Benita, myself, Liam and our experts to answer them as we go. Also — subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, that helps us get this information out. Thanks to everyone listening, things are going from strength to strength. \[28:50\] Now we'll pivot a little and head to Britt, our physio from Gold Coast Physio and Sports Health here on the Gold Coast, for a bit of muscular stuff, focused on running around the Gold Coast Marathon series. What's the most common injury that comes in during a marathon block? I don't know that we keep specific stats on one particular injury, but if I think back to 2020, through the COVID \[29:20\] period, and around this time in marathon prep — the next two to three weeks — we'd start to see bone stress injuries come in. Courtney, sound familiar? Bone stress injuries, where a bone becomes injured, are often a training-load error — this is where people commit to marathon training but their bone health isn't ready for it, and they get bone injuries, which are a significant limitation to training. \[29:51\] We'd see those pop up around now, and through COVID it was so common we'd basically expect it to be a bone injury until proven otherwise. Everyone had time — that was 2020, 2021\. Then the other thing we start to see now is calf and Achilles problems, from an increase in training load, trying different shoes, different surfaces, different volumes, without necessarily the background for it. You've talked a lot on the podcast about having a base before you come into a specific prep phase, \[30:26\] and I still feel like people don't get that right, or don't do it for long enough. There's not enough commitment there, or there's a lack of side training, training volume, or strength work. So we see a lot of knee, Achilles and calf issues popping up around this time, right up until about two weeks out. There are people listening who might be running their first marathon, who've never seen a physio before because they're new to running and just haven't got injured yet. \[31:00\] But Courtney and I have talked about the idea that if you run for long enough, you're going to get injured. You mentioned that "base" a moment ago — the idea of not being ready for it. Most marathon programs are a twelve-week block. Without asking for an exact number, because everyone's different, how long do you think that base needs to be built before you can successfully get through a marathon block? It's really variable depending on your background. \[31:31\] Take swimmers, for example — someone who was an elite swimmer deciding to switch to running. Their bodies are completely unprepared for tolerating gravity and impact loads, so they'd need a much longer period — even for a swimmer, I'm talking twelve to eighteen months of building up running tolerance. For someone who ticks along at two or three runs a week and then commits to a marathon, you'd still probably need a good \[32:05\] six to eight months of consistently ticking along with weight-bearing running, maybe with some variability — a bike thrown in, some swimming — before committing more fully to something more structured. We see people skip that. Complete beginners think, "This is a great challenge, my friend wants to do it," and they've only been doing parkrun once a week and maybe one other short run — and it's just not enough. There'll be people listening to this right now thinking, "No..." \[32:37\] But I think there's a happy middle ground, because we're probably talking about running versus walk-jogging. Walk-jogging a marathon to get through it is a different scenario to going out and racing it. I'm actually surprised you said bone injuries — I was a hundred percent expecting calves. But it makes sense with the bone stuff, because I always think of bone injuries as something elite runners get from doing too much, but it makes sense that it's the same thing at the lower end — just on a different scale, isn't it? \[33:08\] We know injury has a U-shaped relationship with training load. Someone who's really underdone in training has a high risk of injury, and someone who's really overtrained also has a high risk. But someone with a moderate-to-high training load, kept chronically — meaning over a long period of time — is protected from injury. So newbies are at risk, and \[33:38\] people pushing the top end of training volume are at risk too, but somewhere in the middle there's a happy medium that we know is protective. That's really interesting. I'm trying to figure out where I sit on that U-curve. Well, you bounce around every week, depending on what we're talking about — and that in itself is a risk. We don't actually know that much about preventing injuries. People come into the clinic all the time asking, "How do I prevent injuries?" \[34:08\] If I had a magic pill that prevented injuries, I'd be rich, which I'm not. You wouldn't need the clinics. Exactly — because there's nothing I can tell you to do that guarantees you won't get injured. What our role in the health profession really is, is about supporting you so you're not bouncing between high and low training loads — finding a happy medium where you can continue training at a certain volume. \[34:43\] Because it's the continuation of that volume that protects you from injury, and helps you achieve your goals, rather than up one week, down a bit, up a little, down again. For new runners, if you had three things to do before you run that could help prevent injury, what would those be? Every person is different — it depends on your strengths and weaknesses — but as a general rule, for a complete \[35:19\] beginner, it's a great idea to activate before you run, to get yourself ready. What would be three areas or exercises? Here's the "Hi, welcome to running" video, presented by Britt Kayling. The biggest one, and I know it's not something you do directly before a run, is sleep. Our three pillars for reducing risk are: sleep — are you getting adequate sleep for what you need? Only you can really work that out. \[35:50\] If you're someone who's getting repeat injury after repeat injury and you're always tired, you have to look at your sleep — whether you need a better volume of sleep or better quality. Sleep is one of them, because it's the foundation of recovery. The idea of improving performance is that you train to give your body a stimulus, that stimulus causes positive adaptations that should make you better — but those adaptations only happen when you have the recovery in your tissues to allow them to repair. \[36:24\] So Liam, you go out and do an intense run, off the back of one thing or another — if your body isn't fully repaired, it can stay in a hypertonic, high-tension state. You keep training on top of that, and when you're not fully recovered — whether it's sleep, nutrition, or a whole range of things — your body isn't back to its normal state of tone, and suddenly your calf is tight and sore. \[36:54\] To make that more specific — off the back of a hard session, I went straight into breakfast radio, and that week in particular I was probably getting about five hours' sleep a night. So I wasn't rested — and that makes sense. Sleep would be one. The second would be nutrition. What often happens for people new to sport, or who've never been exposed to elite environments, is they come to me and say, "I feel like I'm really \[37:30\] clean with my nutrition — I eat healthy, not much sugar." Then we talk, and I ask, "Does your nutrition vary day to day or week to week?" They say, "No, I'm really consistent every day." And I ask, "Does your training vary every day?" "Yeah, absolutely." I say, well, your nutrition has to vary the same way your training does. On a high-training day, you have to fuel for that day beforehand. Similarly, in a high-volume week, or a week where training's ramping up, your nutrition has to fuel that too. \[38:06\] Because without those nutrition pillars in place, your body can't repair itself. One conversation I have regularly — I'm not a sports dietitian, but similar to how Benita uses health professionals around her — I work in a team environment, and if I think an athlete is a bit underfuelled, not eating enough, I'll refer them out. You can be completely clean, no sugar, very healthy, but not getting enough volume of food and energy to fuel your sessions. \[38:42\] So I'll send someone to a sports dietitian to have their intake reviewed. That's your second biggest risk factor, particularly with bone stress injuries. It's interesting — the first thing that happened once my scan came back positive for a stress reaction was I had my bone minerals checked. Not nutrition directly, but ruling out whether it was a nutrition issue affecting the bones. I completely understand that. \[39:12\] Because if you're not fuelling enough — not putting enough total energy in — but expecting your body to use energy for training, it has to come from somewhere: your tissues. It's that simple. When you put it like that, it sounds obvious. I want to come back to something once we get to your third point — the idea that Benita is an expert, and Lace Up Running, who we're doing this program with, are running coaches who know what they're doing. \[39:42\] But with the boom around running, we're seeing these — let's call them less-expert — running programs put out into the world. And there's the influencer thing, and a focus on how you look while you're running. That nutrition aspect really interests me, because you only have to jump on Instagram to see runners more concerned with how they look while running than what they're actually achieving. \[40:12\] We don't have the time or the full picture today, but it'd be worth exploring what these people are actually eating to fuel their running, versus eating to look a certain way. And I'd add that it also depends on your age and training status. As a slightly more mature — let's not say old — female runner now, I've hit the perimenopause stage, and my nutritional \[40:44\] needs have changed significantly from what they were eight years ago. The needs I have now are different again from, say, a 24-year-old male. So you need your nutrition individualised to what you're trying to achieve, who you are, your background, and what stage of life you're in. My third thing — actually, I'll make it four — ideally, having a coach and a program supervising you. \[41:14\] Because it's really easy these days to get an AI program that isn't individualised to you, and as you found, Liam, it's really hard to listen to yourself and trust your own instincts. I think Courtney's always been better at that — upholding his own judgement and saying, "Something doesn't feel right today, I'm going to change what I do." In the past — not currently. As you said there, well, you've met Courtney, haven't you? It's really hard, isn't it — if you're having a good week, to not just add a bit extra here, or add an extra tempo, because you're feeling good. \[41:50\] But if you've got a coach — and I love Benita's approach of being a bit more conservative and doing it week to week, so she can check in and modify the program if you're not going well — because most of us wouldn't hold ourselves to that. No, we'd push through no matter what. Ego shouts at us mid-week, telling us we're flying. Benita, that week-to-week thing — when we planned this whole 12-week program, Benita Willis, Lace Up Running, \[42:26\] I expected to get a spreadsheet showing me all 12 weeks. But at times, Benita, I don't know what I'm doing three days from now, because you want to see how one session goes before telling me the next. And I'm like — that's coaching, isn't it? That's a real coach — coach versus trainer, coach versus a session generator. We shouldn't take away from the fact there are good online programs that coach people to 5Ks and that's great. But if you're chasing a bigger goal, or you've had a history of problems, having someone supervise you, make decisions \[43:04\] for you, and check in on how you're going — I think that's really important, plus it takes away the accountability and stress of trying to think for yourself. That's a big one with me as a coach — you make dumb decisions on your own. It's like the saying, "Do as I say, not as I do." Exactly — that's me to a tee. I don't always do what I tell everyone else to do, even though I try — I still make dumb decisions myself. Don't do as I say or as I do — don't do either! And the fourth thing I'd say is I love having what I call a pre-training routine. \[43:40\] This is what we use in elite sport — how does an elite athlete know how they're going to perform on a given day? You can't do something different every morning leading into a race, because then you don't know what to expect from your body. So we build a little pre-training or pre-race routine — a sequence of stretches, drills or exercises that gets your body and brain prepared for the stimulus you're about to give it. \[44:12\] So, say we take that swimmer example, doing their first marathon. If they're more mobile through their body, with looser joints, they're not used to that gravity feel on the ground and don't really know where to put their body. They probably don't need extra flexibility work — what they need is to strengthen their "Wi-Fi signal," so the brain connects to the body better and knows where it is in space, \[44:43\] so when they run, they're prepared for those gravity forces. That might mean calf raises, hip stability, ab stability, or little drills to prepare them for the run. For someone like Courtney, if he's running well, it might just be a sequence of small activation exercises through his glutes or calves, or if his hip flexors are tight, a quick stretch there — something that prepares him to feel and move better as soon as he starts running. \[45:20\] And it's individual to everybody. Did you have one — a pre-race routine? Of course. What was it? It varied over time, depending on what was weak or what gym program I was doing. I used Swiss balls a lot — activating glutes on a Swiss ball. It's hard to explain in audio, but similar to hip thrusts or glute bridges, \[45:51\] but taken up a step, using instability — being unstable on the ball to make it harder. That worked really well for me for stabilisation and pre-race activation. Not everyone's going to have access to that — when we travelled for triathlon, we'd take, literally, not just a bike and gear, we'd take Swiss balls to blow up, ergos to ride in our motel rooms. We'd go to the ends of the earth to have everything there that we had at home, to make sure we could activate and get out to race as well as \[46:22\] possible. A lot of that comes down to your warm-up routine, and even the timing of when you do it. But I'm not letting you off the hook that easily, Britt — I know it's individual, but for our first-time listeners, if I were going out for a long run tomorrow, what three good, broad activation exercises could I do — that I haven't already been given — that would help me get \[46:53\] ready to run? The main areas would be: calves. When we run, we're taking six to seven times our body weight through a single leg, so our feet, Achilles and calves need to be really strong, because at the end of the day, it's our feet that contact the ground first — that's where the force starts. Your calves and Achilles need to be, I guess, two things — first, not too tight or tense. \[47:24\] If you're a "calf guy" — a toe runner. Is that the term, a "toey" runner? Not always — sometimes toe runners have really strong calves and it's not a problem. But if you're the person who always gets tight calves under different training loads — it's literally my nickname at Britt's clinic. I walked in for my appointment with Liam the other day and one of the massage therapists came out and said, "Calf runner." For someone like Liam, it might be a bit of self-massage on the calves to bring the tone down, and then some exercises. \[47:58\] That might look like a sequence of, say, 15 calf raises, connecting the brain to firing those calves well. Then I like lots of little bunny hops and single-leg hopping — small jumps across the ground, not a lot of them, maybe three sets of eight jumps with a walk back in between. That's preparing your body to work as springs against gravity. You might also grab a skipping rope and do three sets of 20 seconds' skipping, or some single-leg hopping. \[48:34\] That prepares your body for that impact and release off the ground. The other thing you'd want to work is your hips and pelvis — glute bridges, single-leg glute bridges, or there's a standing wall exercise I like to use to get people into the right body position for running. Britt can tell you about that one — sorry to put you on the spot, but it can take a little while for people to find the right glute exercise, but it's about finding something that works and gets you into a better body \[49:04\] position. And then the third would be something like low knees or high knees, little run-throughs — an "A-skip," for people who know drills. Again, you're just getting your body into a better position to get ready. So when you step out the door, it's not, "I feel rubbish for the first 10 minutes, I can't get going, my hips feel low, I'm running too much on my toes, \[49:34\] my calves feel tight straight away." It's giving yourself some stimulus that makes you feel better right away. It also gives you the chance to notice, "My calves still feel really tight after this," and adjust — maybe add a few more stretches to the routine, or "something doesn't feel right in my arms today," so you add some arm work before heading out. It gives you the chance to know how you should feel, adjust for it, and be ready to actually use the session when you step out the \[50:06\] door. This is so good — despite all my calf problems, I don't think I've ever done any of this. I'd bet there are people listening heading into their first marathon who almost certainly don't have a pre-run routine like this. I'd say — and look, it's easy to say "do it," and then the reality is you've got a coffee in your hand, waiting at the car, and the group started at five. Exactly — and the group's already going. \[50:36\] It's always that thing. But if you can, even choosing one of those three pillars and doing one exercise beside the car — throw a towel down on the grass and quickly do some glute bridges — it makes a big difference. I know it does, and I'm still someone who doesn't do it all the time. This is the whole "do as I say, not as I do" thing again — because there'll be people listening going, "I'm going to try that," and then it's... \[51:06\] it's the discipline of thinking, if I've got an hour's run to do today, I actually need to treat it as an hour-and-twenty, or an hour-fifteen run. Because the pre-run activation needs to occupy fifteen minutes of that time. But it can also just be a sixty-five-minute run — you know what I mean, it doesn't have to be everything. I think that's often the barrier to doing some of these — and I'm not having a go at any industries here, but if you add up physio, nutrition, what else could you throw in there? \[51:38\] Psychology — and this is talking more on the elite side now — but if you add up all these pillars that go into performance, suddenly you've got half a day of prep before you even go running. So it's about working out what works for you, and even if you just take some parts of those pillars out — even if you get out of the car and do just one of those pillars — it's better than none. \[52:08\] If it's your calves, do the calves. If it's your glutes, or getting into the right position, at least activate the glutes. And then you're one step ahead of where you'd otherwise be. And if you're going to step out of the car, I'd say do some jumps, or grab a skipping rope and do 30 seconds of skipping — because think about the position you're in, sitting in a car: \[52:38\] bent at the hips, bent at the back, bent at the knees — you're not putting much force through your calves and feet. Then you drive to training for 20 or 30 minutes early in the morning, and expect yourself to suddenly stand up straight and work against gravity. Let's talk a bit about cadence and running. Going back to the injury side, since that's where we've mostly focused — does cadence have any effect there? Because I'm thinking, too slow a cadence means landing too heavy — but is there such a thing as too high a cadence? I mean, you probably lose efficiency at some point if you're turning over too quickly. Just quickly, for the average runner — cadence means the number of times your feet hit the ground. Correct — steps per minute. \[53:08\] Steps per minute. I dislike the idea that everyone should be running at 180 steps a minute. I was about to say the "rule of thumb" — I'm glad I didn't. Did you hear the episode where we talked about songs that sit around 180 BPM? Rock Lobster. You can't tell me that, at my leg length — which I'll admit is probably below average — my cadence should be the same as someone like Matt Hauser, \[53:39\] who's got legs up to my chest. There's no way we'd run at the same cadence — it doesn't make sense. But I have people all the time telling me, "I read I should be at 180, and I'm at 160, and it feels so hard to get there." I say, well — that's probably too high for you. Yeah. So there is, I think, an optimal number for everybody, and there's such a thing as too low. The only thing we really know from research is: if you have knee pain, increasing your cadence will help. \[54:13\] So if you've got knee pain and you're running at 160 steps a minute, increase it by five percent and see if it reduces the pain. Five percent is still quite a lot — ten percent would take you to 176 steps a minute, so five to ten percent adds up if you're not used to it. That's where it's useful to run to a song — if I'm trying to move someone from 160 to 168 steps a minute, find a song, or a playlist, \[54:46\] at 168 beats a minute, and run to that. If holding it doesn't change your knee pain, try going a bit faster again — add another four or five percent. So that's the only thing we know at this stage from research: knee pain is linked to cadence. Everything else, I think there's a happy medium for everyone, and runners who use their tendons well — as springs off the ground — tend to \[55:16\] have a slightly lower cadence, because they get better distance per stride, a bit springier across the ground. So their cadence will naturally be a bit lower than someone shuffling along the ground. So there's no magic number — it depends whether you're efficient, whether you're having problems, and whether you actually need to change it. Don't change it just because you heard it in a song or a podcast \[55:49\] saying you should be at 180 steps a minute — change it for the right reason. Great. What about breakfast — morning of the race? Black coffee, usually just coffee — you're not going to eat on the morning of a race? I don't usually, but we do need to start practicing that. Really — this is a training run, come on, why not? Yeah, I'll take some sports lollies with me. \[56:20\] Benita's stepping in here — it's definitely something we need to practice going forward. Even something like a crumpet and honey, a banana, some oats or cereal — some people don't like milk or yoghurt or dairy, but even toast, a piece of toast with jam — you need something in your stomach, especially before the marathon, but even before a 30K. I'd eat at least an hour and a half to two hours before you start, and take a gel just before you start, within the last \[56:52\] five to ten minutes — gels absorb quickly and won't hurt you close to the start. So five, ten minutes before the race, have a gel. I'd practice that even before some easy runs, if you've never done it. I haven't. And you can only run early on the weekends — yeah, I know. \[57:22\] But up to now, you would've gotten up on the morning of the marathon, had black coffee, and tried to run on that — and it would've felt terrible. So you'll have to try some nutrition this weekend — actually eat breakfast, then have a gel five to ten minutes before. Do you warm up before any of these? Usually just a stretch. And we'd use the first ten to fifteen minutes of the race itself as the warm-up, because I don't think you need to run too much before the start, given this is your longest run yet. \[57:53\] Before the marathon we'll talk through a proper warm-up. But for this race, I'd warm up as the race starts, because we don't want a 30K to turn into 35K of extra running. Warm-up's super important — maybe we won't warm up much this week, but plenty of people racing this weekend, or doing a half — I think there's a Brisbane Half coming up that a lot of people use as their lead-up race. How do you approach the warm-up when you also need to get to the start line in time for your corral? \[58:29\] It's not a problem you had in your career, but a lot of your athletes now would face it. How do you approach that? I'd say five to seven minutes of jogging, short and sharp, with a few stretches and a few run-throughs at race pace. But when you're trying to get to the corrals — I've had athletes at the London Marathon who had to catch a bus for an hour from the city to the start. Same at Boston — these point-to-point races. \[58:59\] If you're staying near the start at the Gold Coast Marathon, maybe jog a little from your hotel — but once you're in your corral, you need to have already done your jog and warm-up, and have enough clothing to stay warm. You can run a bit on the spot, but be prepared to just warm your body a little and keep enough clothes on, rather than stressing about needing to keep running right up to the gun. \[59:29\] That's probably one of the most stressful things for runners chasing a time who've practiced their warm-up a lot — you get to the race and realise you can't run or move for 45 minutes if you want a good spot on the line. If anyone's listening, that's worth thinking about now, and having a strategy for. You might have to get comfortable with not being able to run for 45 minutes, or an hour, beforehand, depending on the event. \[01:00:04\] Yes — and I always think, know where the toilets are, because so many people get to the start area, realise they need to go, stressfully run off, then have to fight their way back in. It might be worth practicing that too. But I think with these races, you've always got to remember the first few Ks are just warming your body up — in big races you can't run very fast at the start anyway, because of how many people are around. So that's something not to stress about — it's just about warming into it. \[01:00:38\] That's a good way to think about it. Have you got your toilet strategy sorted? Toilet is black coffee. Yeah, black coffee. There you go. This is TMI, but I have quite lazy bowels, so it's not usually an issue for me unless I have too much black coffee. So I'm really hoping my body doesn't flip the script on race day and I suddenly experience something I don't normally. For now, I'll send you a link after the show of Paula Radcliffe running the London Marathon. \[01:01:13\] No, she had an, um, active bowel moment. Under a table. Oh my goodness. Well, crazier things have happened. Between you two, you're up at three for a run that feels like a midday session when you're starting at 6am. With the early radio starts — of all things, that should be. We're here now — that was genuinely a real adjustment for me, one workplace change was the time I go to the bathroom, because my alarm goes off at 3:30. \[01:01:43\] Previously, for years, I was working afternoons, and I'd do my morning routine around 8:30\. Now I've had to bring it forward five hours, and my body's had to adjust. That's been a big shift for me. A big what? A big shift — there was an "F" in there somewhere. It's not always a big shift — depends on the number of coffees. Right, back to running briefly, Benita — \[01:02:15\] it is a big issue, and a number of my runners have talked about toilet issues — whether or not to go before the start line, and how it plays on their mind if they didn't go and end up needing the portaloo on course. It's definitely something people talk about — it's a big part of it. There's always that thing at the Noosa Triathlon too — the nervous pre-race toilet visit, where you think you're done, and then the nerves kick in again right as they're about to marshal you to the start line, and you're like, no — \[01:02:45\] round two. You look at the line and think, what am I going to do? We've had the benefit and privilege of Benita Willis — arguably Australia's greatest ever distance runner — joining us as a coach through Lace Up Running. We've had Bronte Langbroek come on board as our first-time marathoner. We've had all the various experts roll through today, and we're joined now by a two-time Commonwealth gold medallist over the marathon distance, and a man who in 2018 delivered one of the greatest runs the Gold Coast Marathon course has ever seen, winning gold for Australia — \[01:03:15\] Mr Michael Shelley. Welcome to the podcast. I've told your story — I hope that was okay — about how you'd spend the first 32, 36K of a race treating it like a tourist. I think it was the London Marathon when you first told me that story: "I just want to take in the sights for that first 32K, then the race starts." When it gets easy — how did that come about? Was that Dick's idea, or yours? \[01:03:49\] It came a lot through racing itself, and through conversation with Dick and understanding more about what the marathon distance actually is — because it's always going to be a challenge, no matter what, over 42K. Talking with other athletes, like Benita, and Deek and Mona, and Lisa Weightman, you always find they'd say the same thing — you'll feel quite good through that first 30K, and then \[01:04:19\] you really start thinking about that last 12K. You switch on, you focus, and you start using energy in your mind to get to the finish line a bit \[01:04:49\] quicker. Whereas if you're as relaxed as possible early on, not stressing, not using extra energy, you can use that energy later in the race. In that non-stressed mindset, were you going purely by feel, or watching your pace? A lot of it was feel — and Dick was in that camp too, being easy and relaxed and not breathing too heavily. That was probably my other thing — not breathing too heavily meant not using too much energy, so I could use it later. That was the other piece, and something I practiced in training too — try to be as relaxed as possible. That was basically what I tried to keep as simple as possible. But you had a goal pace — you'd have a target time and might end up going out too hard or too easy. How did you think about pacing? Purely by time, or did you have a GPS watch back then? I never really raced with a watch — I tried to run to feel. That was my main approach, partly because there was always a pace group running to a set time — up to 25 or 30K, they'd have their watches doing that job. So I'd try to stay relaxed, enjoy the city, and then once the pace groups started pulling apart around the 28K mark, I'd start switching on a bit and pushing from there. That notion of running without a watch — there are probably people listening much more in my camp than yours, controlling pace purely by feel. Well, the watch is a perfect training tool — one of the best things ever made. I remember Marty Dent introducing me to Garmin. And the watches these days are a lot smaller than the original ones — I think it was the Forerunner 305, quite a big watch, and I don't have the biggest wrist. But it let me use pace and look at training graphs and that sort of thing. \[01:06:33\] That really helped, because Dick lived in Canberra and I was on the Gold Coast — for training purposes it was great, I'd download my heart rate data and he could interpret it, being a science guru and physiologist, and work out how hard a session was through the numbers and my comments. We did that for my whole marathon career, and he'd come to a couple of sessions a week every now and then, but that was mostly how we communicated. \[01:07:05\] You said you did most of your running by yourself in training — was that by choice, or a lack of people who could keep up? Mostly by choice, honestly. I appreciated having sessions with other people every now and then, but at the same time you don't want to put yourself in a hole by training with others all the time. For me, I felt like I'd race too much — I'd have that competitive switch flip on a bit too often \[01:07:35\] in a session, and it would put me in a hole. I did that a couple of times, just pushing myself hard by myself. But sometimes you just accept the session was what it was, and move on to the next one. There were times I was out in the rainforest and had to walk home — a two-hour walk, completely bombed. I was supposed to do a 30K run, managed maybe 20K, and had to walk the rest. \[01:08:05\] It just happens — you move on to the next one. Do you want to get into the shoe chat now, or the Gold Coast course? Let's make sure we cover the course, because that's not the main reason we're here — we could chat for hours about everything — but your Commonwealth Games gold medal was on this same course, and most of our listeners are running Gold Coast this year. How would you approach — let's call it Mike Shelley's cheat sheet for the Gold Coast Marathon course? \[01:08:37\] A little caveat — we ran it in reverse for the Commonwealth Games, so we didn't do our usual research. In essence, doing the south leg first might be a better approach, so you get over that hill in front of Australia Fair earlier, because once you're over it, it's a tough one — easier at 30K than at 40K, that's for sure. But I'd say enjoy the city too, the parts you don't usually get to see at that time of day. \[01:09:16\] The streets are closed to cars and bikes, so enjoy running through iconic parts of the Gold Coast, like Cavill Avenue, down toward Miami. You don't get to run down Cavill without traffic — it's just runners. It's a really enjoyable time. There are a couple of speed bumps down around Hedges Avenue — try not to let them get to you, \[01:09:55\] because the surface can be a bit unstable there, up and down. How would you break up the course — running in about two and a half weeks, sitting at the start line, you spend the first 32K like a tourist, but do you break the course into sections mentally, like "I want to reach this point by this time"? Not so much for me, because the Commonwealth Games was more of a racing tactic situation. \[01:10:30\] I didn't wear a watch, so it was about how I was feeling — if there was a move I felt I could cover, I'd go with it; if it felt too hot, I'd ease off a bit. But for anyone running the marathon, find your pacemaker and try to start with them. That's probably the number one tip — find the pace group matching your training and your goal, stick with them, and try to have a chat with the people around you, because that's a good guide to how hard you're actually working in that \[01:11:10\] first part of the race. So it's about finding the pace you want to run and the pacemaker for it, then trying to talk to the people around you to stay comfortable and relaxed, especially in that first half. If you're all together around the 30K mark, you can start pushing and motivating each other to the finish when things get tough. And if you can't hold a conversation, if it's too hard to talk, \[01:11:40\] maybe drop back a little to the next group — especially in that first 10K, which is probably the most important part, because you're going to feel fantastic there. Trust me, everyone feels fantastic in the first 10K, and if you've gone a bit hard, you'll start feeling it sooner. As we mentioned earlier, the Cairns Ironman happened over the weekend, and \[01:12:10\] Reannah Crean, a friend of the podcast who loves sending us her Strava bike sessions, completed the Ironman — shout out to Ree and everyone else from the pod who did the Ironman. Interestingly, the marathon leg of an Ironman is a lap course — a few laps to make up the marathon distance, I think five laps or so. I saw on Reannah's socials that she broke the run up into a lap for her mum, a lap for her dad, a lap for her husband Will, a lap for their son Dash, and then \[01:12:42\] a lap for herself. She broke the course up by who she was running each lap for. So even in more of a racing mindset, there's still that ability to break the course into sections for people. Benita talks about that a lot too, with her amateur athletes — thinking about who you're doing it for, who's driving you. I love that as a reminder for everyone, myself included — don't be a slave to the watch. \[01:13:14\] The watch is a great tool — your GPS, your pacing, all of it — but in the end you've got to listen to your body. A marathon's long enough that you'll go through ups and downs and come out the other side, but if you're just a slave to "that's my time, that's my pace, it's on my GPS," and things start going wrong, you need to be able to dictate your own feelings and pace. Mike's taken that to the extreme of not using a watch at all, but \[01:13:44\] the other option is using just your heart rate — most watches have it — and running to that, to make sure you're not pushing too hard. It can give you a guide: I'm working a bit too hard for this point in the race. Just having that on your screen to monitor effort makes sure you're not overcooking it. Now, there's a bit less traffic in a marathon than most of our In The Beginning family will experience on race day. \[01:14:23\] Aid stations and turns — can you talk about navigating them? Very difficult. I tried to get my fluids in earlier, because it's a lot harder to take on fuel in the back half of a race. That was something I learned through running — especially with gels, I'd need water with them because mine were a thicker gel. How early would you take your first gel? \[01:14:53\] Probably at the 10 to 15 kilometre mark — that's when I'd take my first one. I'd always take one before the race too, just in case — so if you don't get to that 10 or 15K point, you've still got something in you. I'd use water to take the gel, so I wasn't diluting flavours, because mixing can upset your stomach. I'd use a different sports drink around 20K, and toward the back end, flat Coke. \[01:15:25\] Still works — it's something. What about, as silly as this sounds — we all know how to turn, but positioning yourself around a turn on course? Now, you didn't have as many people around you in a marathon as some runners will have at the Gold Coast Marathon this year, but did you have a tactic for the turns? They're basically hairpin turns. I'd generally swing a bit wider and come back in — if you cut it too short, you basically end up stopping. \[01:15:59\] You want to eliminate that slowdown as much as possible going around a corner. If you swing wide, you can hold your pace more, even though you're swinging out wider — you're not breaking stride, which can otherwise leave you feeling tight or flat coming out of a corner because you're having to re-accelerate. You keep your pace a bit higher the whole way through, instead of dropping right down and having to build back up. \[01:16:30\] The other thing I'd say for anyone running it — heading back up north last year I nearly went over on my ankle a couple of times, because as you come past Cavill there are those traffic islands in the middle. I nearly rolled an ankle twice, because with so many people around you can't see them coming until you're right on them. I'd say be mindful, particularly heading back up through Cavill, of those islands, because by that stage — 25 \[01:17:07\] K in or so — you're a bit fatigued and can get a little lazy with foot placement. Also, before we move on, at drink stations — grab one and keep going, don't stop. That's the other thing that can cause a bit of a pile-up. Just grab a drink and keep moving as soon as you've got it, \[01:17:41\] because otherwise it causes chaos, not just for you but everyone behind you. It's a pet peeve of mine — people who grab their drink, go "great, got it," and then stop. I've always wondered, particularly running at pace, about the camber of the road — does it matter, do you try to find the flat spot, or is it not worth worrying about over the length of a marathon? I don't really think about it, to be honest — I usually just follow the blue line. That's the quickest way home, the way I look at it — get on the blue line and stay there, \[01:18:14\] especially once the pace has settled into the race, unless there's a reason to pull out of it. Just stay on the blue line, quickest way home. For those who don't know, the Gold Coast Marathon has an actual painted line marking the exact marathon distance — \[01:18:46\] so just follow the blue line and it'll get you home safe and sound. Apex the corners, race-line them. You've talked about the sightseeing — and then that back-end section is where the race really begins for you. Aside from everything you've already advised, do you have any tricks for those last six Ks? \[01:19:22\] Mostly a mindset thing — get a song stuck in your head, hopefully one you like. Sometimes thinking of a song can break up a kilometre — you start singing it in your head and before you know it, a kilometre's done. Oh, one kilometre less — then think of another song, and repeat. If it's a really good song, it can give you a bit of a lift \[01:19:52\] to the finish line, or think of a training session you've done and tell yourself, I've just got one of those reps left. Those are the things I used, especially because I trained a lot in the Nerang Nature Reserve — I'd think, if I've got a K to go, "just one more straight, one more straight to go." It's easy, and it helps calm the stress building in your head, and the burning sensation you're feeling — just keep going, keep going, you've only got one to go, break it down, it's not that far. Just change what — what was the song you used to run through your head? Honestly, I can't remember — whatever was on the radio last, probably. Just something that takes you to a happy place is the best way to describe it. I might go back and watch the Commonwealth Games marathon footage to see if I can catch myself mouthing along. "Back in black, da-da-da" or something. Did you have anything like that as a mental distraction when the legs started burning? I can't remember specific songs — I used to count. I mentioned that before, counting steps: ten steps on one leg, ten on the next, ten more, and just think that way. But most of the time I was just in the race — my mind would be locked on, okay, what do I need to do to catch that person, or stay away from that one? Cadence was another big one I'd always focus on — my form, keeping my cadence up so I wasn't getting bogged down. That was a big one, and I think it applies to the back end of most marathons — as you start to lose cadence, you get heavier, you start to fall apart a bit. Everyone's got a different cue for it. Did you have a specific cue, like feeling yourself over-striding and pulling it back? \[01:22:02\] Do you have any running cues like that you'd actually think about while running? There were times, running hills at Nerang, where we'd say "run the same cadence" going up the hill — so if anything, going uphill I'd shorten my stride. Shorten your stride, which is the opposite of what most people would do, since you'd normally try to drive harder and push. I'd shorten it so I wasn't generating as much lactic build-up, because I wasn't putting as much force through it. \[01:22:32\] I don't know exactly why, but for me it worked — if I started putting too much force through my stride, it just felt like I was getting heavier and heavier. Shortening the stride and getting up the hill worked better for me. Those are the things I remember — that was probably the main one, cutting the stride back and just working up the hill. It felt easier at the time, whether or not it was actually more efficient, but it worked well for me. \[01:23:07\] I think it worked because I used to follow your lead and copy it — that's often what happens in these conversations, not so much giving direct advice, but sharing what worked for me over time. A lot of that's been shaped by taking information from different people across my career — nothing's really new. A lot of the purer running knowledge came from spending time running behind Mike and watching, thinking, why is he so efficient? How is he holding that pace? I could run three or four K with him, then start dropping off. \[01:23:43\] I was always trying to work out why I couldn't hold his cadence — what was I doing differently. In the end, I just wasn't as good a runner — that's what it came down to. But I learned a lot watching how one of our best marathoners, at the time, operated during those sessions. He's always trying to figure things out — there's always a puzzle for Courtney's brain. Interestingly, as you two have both been Olympians and Commonwealth Games gold medallists, my brain, when I'm breaking up a run — I did this on \[01:24:13\] the weekend, knowing I had 800 metres — breaks it into laps of an athletics track. I can't help but break things into 400-metre blocks, because that's one lap of a track. Or on a longer run, thinking, "I've got one parkrun left." Athletics track — that does my head in, but I've tried it: "sweet, I've got ten laps left." If I've got four K left, that's just how my brain works. I'd use light posts — in a marathon or similar, I'd use light posts, or something visible as a marker, that's another one you could use. Thinking about the course specifically — that would work well heading both north and, after the turnaround, along the beachfront, and once you're past Australia Fair, you could map yourself against traffic lights too. \[01:25:15\] Along Ferry Road, or Jefferson, the intersections and cross streets are probably a good measure too. Gold Coast is a great course for landmarks, especially out-and-back — you can really pick them out. We've got high-rises everywhere, and those are always easy to spot. and it's good for the Gold Coast that way. When you're coming out, you're thinking, "Where am I heading after this?" Exactly — that's the other one, it's the reward for effort — your best incentive is having something to look forward to. Okay, I'll get chocolate — I remember after every long run in summer we'd go get a jumbo frozen Coke, either at McDonald's or Hungry Jack's, as the little reward for the long, hard effort out in the Nerang forest, because it was hot there. Just, yeah — is today going to be a jumbo, or, if it wasn't too hot, just a large? Generally, if it was really hot, it was a jumbo. Simplicity again, right? Rewards — reward yourself for hard effort. So there you have it, one of the best in the business, Michael Shelley, Commonwealth Games gold medallist, giving his two bob's worth. Hopefully we can get him back on before this year's Gold Coast Marathon for another chat. That question he asked at the end, about rewards — it's something I always ask myself at the end of a long run. My choices are usually: a large 7-Eleven Slurpee, an iced vanilla latte with a cold Red Bull can in the back of the car, or a one-litre Maximus. I don't know, it changes day to day, but those are definitely my go-tos after a long run. What's yours? Let us know in the comments what your favourite is — maybe it's a zero-carb beer, I see plenty of blokes out in the bush with a few beers after their Sunday morning run. I don't know — probably works better with an avo though. Anyway, that's me — I'm getting a bit delirious after 30 hours of travel over here to Europe, due for a shower and a rest. But we'll be back next week, me and Liam, in person, with our normal entertainment episodes. Obviously lots going on in running — some scandals, but also two sub-two-hour marathons in London, which was absolutely amazing to see. We'll catch you next week.