Cape Town Joins The World Majors: Is Nine Too Many? | EP 91

[00:00] In the beginning, episode 91 — Courtney, we're back, and we need to start with big news. Big news. We have another World Major marathon. Yep — Cape Town, just when Sydney was still celebrating. That's a good point, I don't feel like Sydney had enough time as the new kid in class before the Abbott World Majors went and presented Cape Town. There's definitely a strategy here. Sal wrote in and gave us the heads-up on

[00:30] this one — and watch out for Shanghai at the end of the year as well. So let's update: Cape Town becomes World Major number 8. The calendar of majors for 2027 now looks like this — it begins with Tokyo, then Boston, London, and Cape Town slots in as the fourth major of the year. Sydney comes after Cape Town, shuffling back to fifth, then Berlin, Chicago, New York. And the expectation, as Sal flagged a

[01:00] couple of weeks back, is that Shanghai, which is still to run in 2026, will — pending any disasters — get the nod and become World Major number 9, meaning we'll exist in a running world with nine Abbott World Marathon Majors every year. Does that number sit with you? Odd, to be completely frank, doesn't sit — it means nothing to me, but I'm just reading it, it's

[01:32] definitely — there's people on both sides of the fence. People who love to travel for marathons, this is great news, there's one more to tick off. Then I suppose there's some traditionalists around going, where do you stop? It starts to look crowded to me. Yeah, well, five, six, seven, nine, ten — yeah, I mean, this is obviously where the idea is to stop, just like our government, when do you when do you believe them? And ultimately, if you're

[02:03] sitting there as part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors team, presumably taking submissions from countries and races around the world and governments that have pockets and want to bring things to their city, I can imagine it would be difficult to say no. I think, realistically, it's about when does, when do we hit the top of the bell curve with running in this era. Because back in the '80s running

[02:33] obviously had its time, and then it never went away by any means, but it quietened, probably just stagnated, and then the boom has come. I think the answer to all this lies in when do you start to see it flatline a little bit — and at the moment there's no signs of that. So everything's in good — everything's in really good health, and that's going to create opportunity for more and more. We're talking about London running two races next year as well.

[03:03] So theoretically nine locations, ten races potentially. Looking at the spread though, you add in Shanghai — let's work on the assumption Shanghai gets added to this list. The breakdown then becomes, of nine World Major marathons, three of them are in America, two in Europe, two in Asia, and one in — what are we — one in Africa and one in

[03:33] Australia, or Oceania, for lack of a better word. It does leave a hole — where? South America, true, that's a big old continent, a big population. You're right, if you sit down with an atlas and spin the globe, and you're Abbott World Major marathons, you go, oh yeah, we missed something here. And it's a population base, I think, is the key one there.

[04:04] It's not even probably — I mean, there's a continent, one, it's a location, but two, the population in some of those countries is wild, like Brazil and that. Just the Rio Marathon, the São Paulo Marathon is South America's largest, drawing fields of over 30,000 runners running through Latin America's biggest city each May. What about India? It's a country that's developing at these — in the world population, but it's

[04:36] also developing at a — it's such a rate of speed. But I know I have a little bit of inside knowledge around the fitness there, because one of my colleagues works a similar job that I do there, in triathlon, running, health, strength and fitness. All of these organisations are across the whole country and growing at speed. It's not like they know they don't exist there. The events exist there, it's all there.

[05:06] So I mean, that's a big one — the Mumbai Marathon, known as the Tata Mumbai Marathon for sponsorship reasons, is held in January. So again, that's, from a calendar perspective, the Tokyo Marathon, which is the first marathon major of the year, is in March. So there's space. It is the largest marathon in Asia, as well as the largest mass-participation sporting event on the continent. I'm just trying to get a sense of how many people compete in this.

[05:37] The course record is 2:07. So it's not a super-quick marathon. Did I miss something — Middle East, Dubai? Well, that's part of Asia too, so you can — right now, Tokyo and Shanghai. Yeah, okay. Let's, let's, let's — if you're listening along at home, play with me — don't play with me, play along with me, like Barney the Purple. That's something like you'd say in

[06:08] that's something like you'd say in an AFL match, Liam — something like I'd say on the radio, it's like, play along in your cars. Yeah, yeah, right. What is the marathon out of all the majors — let's get to the majors now, include Shanghai, include Cape Town, let it be known here, what is the one you want to run? Which is the one, 'cause this is when you get nine. I then, my mind goes, well, nine, what's the one?

[06:38] Yeah, it forces you to narrow it down. What is — okay, I'm going to work backwards here. It's not Chicago, and it's not Sydney, it's not Cape Town, and I'm going to assume Shanghai's in — it's not Shanghai. I've run London, I'd love to run London again, I genuinely would. I loved London, I love the city, I love the rain. Is it the one? It's not, to me it's New York. Yeah, to me, it's still New York, yeah, New York's the one.

[07:08] I look — again, I love running, I'd love to run them all. But if I had to pick one, if Abbott calls us up tomorrow and goes, guys, we want to take you to one, I'm sitting here going, Courtney, we've got to make it New York. Yeah, what's up for you? Until you just said New, and now I'm going to say New York, yeah, 'cause I think you're right. I was going to say, for me it's Tokyo, yeah, it's right there — but I love, I have a love of, like, I love Japan, so to me I love Japan too, that one. And I know the crowds around, you know, Tokyo and how

[07:40] it works. Yeah, so I would have said Tokyo, but I'm with you — I've actually switched my mind while you said, to New York, yeah, 'cause I think as an experience there's something about it. I heard a great description of New York this morning, on something I was listening to — that city is a movie. That city is a movie, and then to get to run a marathon in a city which feels like a movie, yeah — it, look, Tokyo would be right there. And again, I've run London before, but I'd love to

[08:10] run it again with the — 'cause I ran London in 2010, I reckon, so we're talking sixteen years ago — this decade of running appreciation and everything I now love and know more about running, and soak it in again. Yep. But I've got no interest in London, so you'll be on your own on that one, Liam. But yeah, keep an eye out on it, we expect Shanghai to be named after it gets the green tick, successfully pending any, as we said, disasters that might

[08:42] happen around the race this year. We don't expect any, fingers crossed, we then live in a nine-major-marathon world. I think there's a big hole in that continent of South America. I wouldn't — could you not see a world where suddenly there is a World Major marathon in every month of the year? Maybe twelve's the magic number, and it's a monthly thing probably. Anyway, let's keep moving on. Yep, what are you up to?

[09:13] Yeah, still not running on, still not running. I went and had a physio appointment the other day, and basically still got some fluid around the knee, the left knee, with the ITB — the burst of everything that's going on, still got some fluid going around the knee off the back of the miler. I had — no, I was basically like, I'm done, and I've just kind of not done anything or thought about any running or anything like that. I haven't, and as a result I haven't rehabbed the knee properly. So Liam at Gold Coast Physio, who I went and saw, and Brit both

[09:43] basically had a bit of a look — you still got fluid there, you need to be treating this like an injury, because I hadn't been. So I'm on the Celebrex, the anti-inflammatory stuff, I'm working through a dosage of that, I'm icing the knee, I'm actually treating it like an injury now, which is what I should have been doing, probably from the beginning. From the beginning, and it's improving. Okay, it's improving slowly. I'm going back to see Liam next week, and if it's at a point where I can avoid it, great, but

[10:14] if not, the next solution would be to go and see a sports doc, get a drain and get a cortisone shot put into it so I can resume training. I'm a month on now, I've just got the itch back. I got in the pool the other day for the first time, I did okay in the pool, so I'm ready to start training again for, you know, just cross-training. Obviously Noosa's probably the next event that I'm going to do, the triathlon. But aside from that — so from a running perspective, still not running yet, but ready to actually, I'm pretty keen now. I want to take my daughter Quinn down to start doing some parkruns on a Saturday morning,

[10:45] once she gets a bit of a break from soccer — they've got some school holidays coming up. So yeah, ready, ready to start moving the body again. I was up at Noosa Triathlon, Noosa travelling, I was up at Cairns Ironman on the weekend. How's that? Yeah, great — I'll get into that a bit later. But our friends around Ironman, they were asking about you, they wanted to know what's going on, where are you, what's happened, today — Craig and the crew, talking about where you're going to show up and all that. I actually ran into our friend

[11:16] Bo — Bo Jones, yes, from Botlejack. I was sitting up, we'd been out all day with cameras on course, and then I was sitting up in the VIP area having a cheeky Great Northern, and he came up. I had a great chat, he's a big fella, he's a big man, he's always in the Clydesdale, he's a proper Clydesdale. But he thanked us about our Clydesdale, and it gave me some really good background on the organisation, Botlejack, and how you two met. So it was great to

[11:46] catch up, he's a good fella. I do want to hear more about — yeah, we'll come, we'll come to my last week, 'cause it was definitely a week. Yeah, a week, it was a week. But no, sorry for that. I'm slowly getting ready to start moving the body again. I've got all the footy stuff going on too, like the Suns, they're just making life hard for us at the moment. I was going to make sure we touched on the footy 'cause we know the listeners. So hey, Suns are in a bit of a hole at the moment, a bit of a flat spot.

[12:17] Did you call it? I know they were in Geelong on the weekend, weren't they? No, I didn't call the game against Geelong on the weekend, I called the Q-Clash the other week against the Lions. The loss against North Melbourne, what is it, three weeks back now, is the one that's going to really sting for them. I think they're going to end up having to fight their way through, to borrow a rowing term, the repechage of that bottom six through ten, or seven through ten placings. That's a different — they're different words coming out of your mouth to what was happening six weeks ago, or even four weeks ago. Yeah, they're going to end up having to fight their way through that, I

[12:48] think. Oh, but I still, I'm still — I have full faith in my, not full faith, but I'm still sticking with my Brisbane Lions premiership tip. I still think — good in the last few weeks, and Jared Berry summed it up beautifully then — nothing's ever as bad as you think, and nothing, nothing's ever as good as it seems, right, and he showed the balance and the maturity that team has amongst them. So footy's flat out, I'm doing a bit more NRL work as well with the Gold Coast Titans. But kids — look, the one thing,

[13:19] not the one thing I did realise is, and I don't want to perpetuate this message, but not training for yourself does give you a lot more time with your family. I'm getting to spend some really nice time with my kids at the moment. My daughter's now started playing touch, so I'm into that, I put my hand up to their coach, and there's a lot of Kiwis around my daughter's touch team. And I always said, hey, look, I don't know this game, I can't help, right — I can help, I can help her work on her passing. But if you want me to start teaching how to run routes, I

[13:49] can't, I can't help you. So she's playing touch, the soccer, the surfing — it's, we're kind of doing all those things. You know, when you and I talked about the idea of retiring from running and the things we might take up, I've been doing those for the last month or so. But you're keen to get back. I'm pretty ready to lace up a pair of shoes and go for a try again. Yeah, so, well, anyway — from not running to, I haven't so much missed running, but every — if you want to find out more about the specifics of what my running's

[14:19] yes, go back to Wednesday, this Wednesday's episode, because we had a pretty big deep dive — I loved that episode — into jumping into your last hard marathon-prep session, was great. Possibly last hard marathon, oh my God, session — we're not sure whether we need maybe one more, but — to Benita Willis at Lace Up Running, who's currently sending frantic text messages, Courtney, do not hurt yourself. Yes, yes, we've got there. The one thing I have missed — so for the regular listeners, I had that experiment I was doing about only running every second day

[14:50] and I've been very consistent in that. I haven't run with anyone quick, which, you know, I've been very consistent in that. The one thing that hasn't probably played out in that experiment how I would have liked is the gym hasn't been as consistent as I would have liked. There's no progression in my gym, like I've improved it — if anything, it's gone back to complete maintenance at a low level, and I don't hurt myself in the gym as well, so I'm a little bit disappointed in myself with that. But the reality is something's got to give, and when you're on the road, like the

[15:23] last week especially, it's — and gym's the easy one, not the easy one, but — well, one, you've got to find the right equipment at a gym, it's not as easy as, not every hotel has a gym that is warranted to it. And then two, if you've got a choice about running or gym, you're going to take the running, especially if you're on the road and you could be running somewhere new and seeing stuff. Well, yeah, just, I'm more just running, just getting time to get a run in. But my last week, I'll go, we'll talk about my last week a little bit, because it probably gives

[15:53] an insight into what — and I think we said this in an earlier episode — from the outside, it probably just looks like, oh, you turn up a location and just hang out, it's not like it's, you know, behind the scenes, it's not necessarily the case. So last week, I can't remember when we — we were last in, but whenever we spoke last week, I don't believe I've really had too much time. Even when, you know, when night times come and you know, I normally just lay in bed and, you know, I'll be watching some

[16:24] Netflix, or get time — I haven't even had time to watch my TV shows this week, because I've got to bed and literally just gone, I'm just cooked and crashed out every day. I'm chasing my tail. But yeah, when we left last week, I, we headed for Canberra. One thing about Canberra, I want to say it's not just South-East Queensland that's cooked on traffic. Canberra, I hadn't been to, I hadn't been to Canberra like in — let's just say maybe a couple of years, I might have driven through there. Yeah, but I was staying in the

[16:55] city, and pretty much operating around that area. Yes, like, how do Canberra ever get like peak-hour traffic? I thought they designed Canberra not to ever have that. They literally got to design a city so that nothing is next to each other, and they still get. Well, I mean, it's — it's Canberra's almost a FIFO city these days, like, it's the — because of, obviously, industry being politics, it is almost a FIFO city.

[17:26] Anyway, I was about to say, I was about to make the most outlandish — what were you going to say? I was about to say, shut it down, the AIS is here on the Gold Coast. Yeah, yeah, Sydney and Melbourne are the power-broker cities of Australia. Shut Canberra, I'm tipping — I'm tipping the AIS isn't causing Canberra's traffic, Liam. I've got a feeling the other side of government might be, yeah, you know, probably more inclined — but yeah, stuff Canberra traffic, you can go — yeah, you can have your own traffic, it's just as bad as the South-East. But yeah, I was — so I was down there with Subaru.

[17:59] They were launching a whole new range of cars, and I talked about EVs on here before, yeah — that, I loved the — I was driving around in this model called the Solterra, up here on the Gold Coast, up in the mountains, and that, and I loved it. We jumped in that for a moment, and you accelerated, and it threw me back in my chair like Will Davison was driving me in a V8. Well, Liam, you thought that one was impressive. So they've just — the reason, one of the reasons I was down there is, they've just launched what they call the Trail Seeker. They put the Outback, I drive it in the front, in the front of the yard, an EV that's a wagon. So it doesn't have, you know how

[18:33] all the EVs look, you know, how you drive on the road and you go, they're kind of micro-machinery, and the reason behind it is about aerodynamics, so you get the — the thing, so basically you're back on the battery. This is the first one I've seen that looks like a bloody normal car you can get away with driving. And what's it called — doesn't look like an EV. So it's called a Trail Seeker, effectively, think of the current Outback, that shape, full wagon, so you can throw surfboards in it, do everything, and arguably sick. Yeah, it's it.

[19:07] Well, when I talked about the Solterra last time, I started around — I'm probably not going to drive an EV — I'm kind of now going, that looks awesome. So here's the kicker, 4.5K zero to a hundred in the wagon. It makes that Solterra's acceleration feel soft. That's amazing. Oh, I want one in the black. Yeah, so I'm playing around on the Subaru website now. No, I like the bronze. Anyway, we were down there launching that. When are they coming — caught up with my mate, Dakar driver Toby Price, sat on the

[19:40] panel with me. He was talking about — even he'd never driven an EV before himself. Never, never driven an EV. Got to the Canberra airport, jumped in it, the technician who was with him said, put your foot down, and even he was like, okay. When are they, when are they going to be available? Think you're probably looking at maybe August, they're definitely on the websites and that — a cool car, but the only thing is, like, so Liesl, who I do the radio show with, has just bought

[20:11] an EV, and she's — it's the charging, it's a pain in the arse, like. The charging is the factor, because because because, this — right, all I look at this car, this Subaru Trail Seeker, and I go, cool, I want to go, that's perfect, I'm going to pull the kids in, we're going to go camping. But guess what, there is — if you go camping, not charging stations. Now you've got to take a generator. Yeah. So that's the — so this is, yeah, I mean, that

[20:42] was a conclusion we'd come to. I'm just wondering how do I get around that conclusion, because this thing would be a lot of fun, it's a rocket ship — so driving up Springbrook. Oh, yeah, that'd be good, yeah, like going up to Twin Falls and that, this could be a lot, lot of fun. So I was down there, jumped back on a plane quickly, and literally the next morning headed up to Cairns Ironman. So I was up there with Tourism QLD, we were — had some friends up there helping me shoot some

[21:13] content around the race for tourism, and hung out. I haven't been to an Ironman for — I actually don't know, I've never been to an Ironman. What's the vibe, how does the vibe compare to like a Gold Coast Marathon or a Noosa Tri? Let's compare it to Noosa, like let's keep apples with apples, because I think marathons are a very different experience, because you do it in the morning, it's over. I mean, Noosa maybe is a bit similar to that. But if you compare Noosa to an

[21:43] Ironman, the one thing with the Ironman is — and every time I've done this, remind me — I sat there, like I said, I met, met Bo, just sitting there above the finish line at about the 13-to-14-hour mark. And it only gets better from that time on. But some of the — I'll see if I can pull up one of the images that I've, that we shot — you, I've never seen any other sport where the emotion of those finishing from, let's just say, 13

[22:17] hours, 14 hours onwards, as a family unit, as a girlfriend, boyfriend, as a — kids, I, I can see why Ironman is Ironman and why it's worked for so many years. You — I do not, I've never seen that in other sports. It's really like, you know, when you see someone win at the Olympics, and the emotion that certain athletes bring through with that emotion — that's what the age-grouper, or the amateur, gets at the end of those events.

[22:47] And it never gets old, so I love it for that reason. Well, that's why my mate Pete Murray, who I do the Gold Coast Marathon finish line with — Tammy Barker said hello, they were doing the duo — great people in the endurance sport community. But that's why Pete, you know, you can see why he gets such a buzz out of flying all around Australia and Asia hosting these Ironman races, because he gets to witness that emotion every time someone crosses that line. But it's the athlete that gets that emotion, and then you nearly see, and I, we, we were joking a little bit, because a few of the

[23:19] I mean, girlfriends or wives, I'm assuming — and you see them come up, and they are actually more emotional than the athlete. And I'm sometimes wondering, like, they're emotional because they're like, thank God this is over and I can have him back. Like, the emotions for maybe a different reason. It isn't — look, the problem is, is when they get hooked, is when the bug bites, and then they're — like, but the one thing that did surprise me was, I mean, I used to race, I won the half-Ironman at Cairns in the inaugural year. I've raced at multiple Ironman,

[23:52] half-Ironmans around. We were there to shoot the swim start. There was 20 men only in the — for the elite start, maybe. Okay, I didn't count the exact — word, but it was very light. And then maybe there's only seven women. Wow. And I was — someone was explaining to me this morning, it's now not like one of the championship pro Ironman races, which are kind of a bit sad to

[24:24] me, because I looked at it and I went, I have so many good memories of racing — one at Cairns, but two, just around those events, and it's nearly — this is a, what's this to say, I don't want to say it's a problem, but we've talked about — we just talked about marathons, when you get saturation of events because these endurance sports are going so well, you also get dilution of events. And that was the case.

[24:54] So, so you asked me, as a conclusion, you asked me what was Ironman like on the weekend. It was amazing, you saw every bit of why Ironman is Ironman. But if I'm going to be really honest and transparent, I watched from an elite side, and from being in that area myself, I was looking at it going, this is really disappointing. Interesting. And I think, and I — it probably speaks to, it's not about the quality of the event. No, the event's next level and infrastructure, here in Australia, run — yeah,

[25:26] they don't run bad events, they run world-class events. And I don't think, like I said, it's not the — it's just that there's so many events now, you have to pick and choose which ones are obviously the priority events. And Cairns isn't on the elite side. What I was being told this morning, Cairns isn't necessarily one of them now. So it doesn't have quite the same shine as what it even last year, as one of those pro races, did. Alright, tell me. And look, you know, we don't want to finish on a negative note, 'cause I like — I could have sat there for, I mean, I got tired

[25:58] and had to go to bed, but I could have sat there having, under the northern lights, all night just watching the finish. It has given me — because I know that when once it gets into the dark, there's the whole glow-stick finishes, yes, that running around, late finishes. Yeah, running around, huge opportunity. And look, it may already be there. I've never been to an Ironman event like that and watched those night, late-night-time finishes. But coming off the miler, or fractal, other manufacturers of brands or hats or clothing, plural — where's your glow-in-the-

[26:29] dark kit? There's your kit, that — oh, your traffic controller there. No, no, no, no, I mean, if someone is — why aren't you making a hat? Or, like, why aren't you making a hat that spends all day charging in the sun, out on the bike and on the run, and then when the sun goes down, you want lights, like your — like your star stickers and your planet stickers used to put on the roof as a kid. Are you talking about reflective, like a roof? They — I — they would not, reflecting, I'm talking about the ones that would glow in the dark. Glow-in-the-dark hats for Ironman? Why not, like, if it looks, if it just —

[27:00] looks — I'm going to take a stab here that that exists. Someone, someone, any Ironman listening, along a long bow, or anyone who's been to, goes to plenty of Ironman — I think Bo said he had, there is — did he say — you had 50, 50 people racing probably on the weekend. There are, I mean, there are definitely fluoro, I can't see any glow-in-the-dark. Anyway, something, if someone knows of them, please write in. Hey, I want to play a game with you, I want to jump straight into a game. Okay, Runner Alerts, which for those who might not follow it on socials, Runner Alerts is a — if

[27:31] you love running and you love the nerdy stuff around running, and you love shoes and you love clothes, whatever — great account to follow. I love following Runner Alerts. They put up an account post the other day which said, running trends that didn't exist ten years ago. So I want to play a little game with you, Courtney, because we're going to run through these, but I want you — you don't know what these are. No, you haven't seen this one. No. These, so these are essentially, if you go back ten years, these things didn't

[28:01] exist in running. Exactly — well, they might have existed, but they certainly weren't a trend, right? So they might have — people at your level might have known about them. There's no street cred in these. No, exactly. So what I want you to do — you've seen the old blind-rank thing, I'm going to hit you, there's six of them, okay, so you — I'm going to hit you with them, and you, I need you to blind-rank them in order of most significant trends that have emerged in the last ten years. Okay, alright, I'm going to start with running cafes. What is it — one in six, so one through six, running

[28:31] cafes — running and coffee culture have become increasingly connected. Dedicated running spaces now host community runs, events, post-run coffee, like Salt Mill down at Currumbin — that cafe is now connected to the Salt Mill Runners. Where would you put that, one through six? Don't I need to know the other six? No, this is why it's called blind ranking. Oh, okay, because you have to be — I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to hedge my bets, put it right in the middle, at four. Four, okay, recovery slides — recovery footwear has become a

[29:01] category of its own. Many runners now have their own slides or shoes designed specifically for post-run recovery. I'm going to put it below cafes, so let's put it — I'm going to put that as six. Okay, marathon tourism — major marathons have become destination events. Many runners now planning trips around races in cities across. I want to put it at one, but I'm going to put it at two, just so I allow myself a — so, you've still got three and five. Yep, running fashion — performance is no longer the only one,

[29:34] performance is no longer the only priority. Running has developed its own fashion culture with brands, aesthetics and trends influencing what people wear. I reckon I'm going to stuff myself, because one of the — the next, there's going to be shoes in there, isn't there — so you've still got three and five available to you. Look, shoes are, I need to re-jig, but let's go, I'm going to put one — you're putting it at one? Yep. Okay, I think fashion, which means you've got — yeah, it's not a bad pick — which means you've got three and five still available to you. Well, three is going to be shoes, you don't even have to — you don't even have to tell me that one. I think you might have got this ranking a little bit wrong, but

[30:04] that's okay, that's how the game works. Super shoes — yeah, carbon-plated racing shoes, probably number one, but he's going to slide in at three. Alright, and I think you've got this one wrong too then, because the only spot left is five, run clubs. Well, you kind of said cafes — cafe, I've included run clubs in cafes, run clubs have evolved from small local groups into a — okay, so now I've heard them all, so, you had your time again. Yeah, so your blind ranking, so I'm going to — go — so this is your known ranking? No, I'm

[30:34] going to go — shoes, shoes at one, run clubs, two, close, marathon tourism, cafes, slides, cafe slides. Yeah, it's a good ranking, but isn't it amazing, in a decade, those — let's, if you love cafes in with run clubs for the sake of it and make it a five — those five things, shoes, run clubs, tourism, fashion, and the slides are kind of a part of fashion almost, really, or they're part of shoes.

[31:05] Those four things, those are massive, massive, massive businesses, massive brands, massive social spaces in the last decade. Do you know the thing of that, they've missed two things in their league? Yeah. Well, yeah, great, what — great, what do they miss? One is Strava. Yes, yes, yes, totally agree, and I don't know how — I mean — and the other one is posting. Social, socials, the change, the change that running, the

[31:35] special runner, like the — we almost include that in Strava to some degree. No, no, no, no, but, like, like the influencer kind of, yeah, I mean, people — well, it's a combination, it's, it's a running influencer for sure. Because if running wasn't trending, yeah, no one would be wanting to show themselves running, except athletes, like, except the elite athletes, right? So that's a big change. But then it's also, off the back of that, it's just in general, all of us wanting to show our running on socials. Yeah, that — didn't I? I think it's — I,

[32:06] if you put yourself up as a runner ten years ago, you'd probably get unfollowed, I think this guy's going, freaking boring. Yeah, it's become cool. It's become — in fact, it's gone past, it's gone, it's no longer niche, and I would almost say it's no longer cool, it's just normal. Running is normal now. And I think the thing I loved about the post, reason I wanted to bring it here today, is because I think there's five really interesting big world developments that have emerged in the last decade, specifically driven by running. Yep, it's cool, it's cool, cool.

[32:38] Let's quickly run through a few of these, 'cause one on socials, like you just picked up — I just saw yesterday a post from LSKD. Okay, and it wasn't from LSKD the brand, it was from their social media manager, saying they just got — literally just got — a notice, like they got served, okay, I'm making this up a little bit, but they got served papers from Hyrox saying you can no — we've — you can no longer post

[33:09] your athletes and promote them at Hyrox. He went one step further in the post, saying they, when they contacted her, it actually said it was the major sponsor who had put the pressure on about them not posting. Okay, so I'm just — I found — I can imagine, I mean, in this case, if it — like, I'm just going to talk really bluntly, honestly, like, give them the middle finger, because I don't

[33:42] see how they've got a right for athletes who are paying to turn up at their events to say you can't post a photo. I mean, I thought that's the whole purpose of this. Found an account, Matt Kirby — yeah, this is the one — so Hyrox has banned us from sharing content of athletes competing at Hyrox events. We were recently told we can no longer share content of our athletes competing at Hyrox. Corporate exclusivity versus athletic exposure. So it's kind of like — they're called — it's like the Olympic blackout period. They're kind of saying, well, you can't use, effectively, they're at Hyrox in our

[34:16] arena, so you can't post them, because we've got — we won't go into who it is — but, like, we've got a sponsor who's saying we want exclusivity here, we sponsor Hyrox. I'm thinking about this in real time, I'm just processing the idea of it. I could — let's say this is specifically Hyrox, but this could — let's just, for the purpose of it, say this could happen in — well, if you are, if you are Hyrox, which biggest fitness trend in the world,

[34:49] right, it's, it's the biggest, it's the fastest growing, it's the biggest fitness trend in the world, which is having its moment. And, as you say, the guess is, it's probably a bit of guesswork here, but you would imagine that a major sponsor has probably put the pressure on them to say, well — it's not guesswork, because it's — it was actually told, so it was a — so if it is a major sponsor, probably obviously a competitor with LSKD, that has come out and mandated this. If I'm Hyrox, I'm

[35:19] pushing back on the major sponsor, unless it depends who it is. I don't know if the major sponsor's been revealed. Well, look, we're just reading second-hand information, so I don't want to, I don't want to get us into trouble ourselves, because no, no, no, but — that's — it's pretty self-explanatory who it sounds like it is, which, yeah, it's an interesting one. Well, because if you like, again, to go broader, tennis has multiple racket manufacturers, and tennis, sports with

[35:53] manufacturers, right, no brand owns the sport of tennis. I don't think a brand should be able to. If I'm Hyrox, and thinking about your sport at the level of being a global sport, I wouldn't want my sport, my product, being owned by a brand, being beholden to a brand. Yes, you need partners to conduct your events, yes, you need sponsors, and you want to highlight and celebrate those sponsors. But if suddenly one of those sponsors is powerful to the extent that they stop other brands being able to associate

[36:26] with your sport, I think you're putting yourself in a difficult position to, yeah, scale your products. I might be missing something here, I haven't really — I mean, like I said, I just saw it on the plane yesterday, I haven't — but in today's world, wouldn't you want the promotion? I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mentioned they would, it's a great thing. I mean, they're obviously, they're a massive account and they're pushing that. But it's got more, it's more, for me, that you've got someone going in there,

[36:58] you're — you're paying, yeah, a participant in that event, and you happen to be wearing, like, in this case, just any manufacturer, and then that manufacturer has someone in there, in the public space, taking a photo of them, and then, then being able to say, well, you can't post that. I don't know, it's a little bit — I, like I said, I don't know, we don't have the full details on it, but it was a very, very interesting one to me, around — it was an odd, and odd, unless

[37:31] I'll just leave it at that. It was an odd thing for me to read yesterday, that they'd gone down that path. Okay, I've — I've — I've — look, I might dig into this a little bit deeper, because I think I agree — there's, there's, it's kind of, there's a bunch of different avenues to consider: competitor, race organiser, event sponsor. And then there's, and the part you're talking about is, if you're a competitor, you should be able to post this sort of stuff. If anyone out there knows more detail, because — I'd love to invite someone from LSKD on to talk about it, frankly.

[38:03] Well, LSKD, they're just — broad, they brought a team to Red Bull Race the Sun. Yeah, and they do social media, they get it, they get it. It was like, I've got to thank them, because what they put out from our events — they're eyeballs, they turn eyeballs onto your stuff. But it was just quality stuff, the whole team, like, not just them, the whole team was sharing, as it did, all the teams who come to Red Bull Race the Sun — but as one of the core brands who brought a team

[38:34] themselves, like they did an amazing job. So — and I think, and, like, if you look at it from that perspective — if you're an event that's wanting to generate, maybe content isn't a strength of what you do as part of your event, but if you're wanting to find a way, and you can manage the financial outlay to get someone from LSKD involved with your thing, reach out to them, because they do good stuff. I'm going to dig into this a little bit deeper, I think it's really interesting and fascinating. And I think there's a — as you talk about saturation and people trying to stand out, I think the

[39:05] idea of discouraging anybody from posting about your product is a risky move. Interesting. Let's move on. Yes, let's move on. Oh, I just want to give you — talking about quickly, do you see the competition Fractal's running at the moment? No, I haven't. Real quick thing, talking about, you know, making noise in this ever-saturated world, people love free shit. Oh, yeah, they do, people love free shit, and Fractal, this current competition that

[39:38] they're running is essentially people getting to experience what life is like as a pro. You get a quick summary — you get, it's your dream race giveaway, so you get to pick an event, yep, they will fly on you — fly you and a mate over, business, or a com, I don't know, well, no, like an athlete, I said, alright, yeah, true, true, so definitely not business. Yeah, yeah, you'll get accommodation during your event, you'll get a race

[40:09] entry, and you'll get kitted out in full Fractal kit. So this idea of getting treated like a pro, as we, you know, we just talked a bit about LSKD and Hyrox, more and more it's all about experience tourism. This, we just spoke about marathon tourism, it is all about, for people, this world we're in now, is all about the experience of what you're getting to do. I'm sure — and Fractal, giving people this opportunity to have an experience like a pro, you know, because for everybody, like me,

[40:41] who was never good enough, or maybe who didn't work hard enough, or the talent wasn't there, to become a professional athlete — the reason I love talking to you about your career is because it's something I never got to experience. The reason people look and love football and sport and sit at the pub and talk about what could have been is because we never got to do it. So the — when if a brand comes out and goes, look, we're not going to make you run like a marathoner, but we can give you everything else around that. It's a very, I just think Fractal, showing what, in the running-boom world with

[41:15] everything going on, how you execute a cool giveaway. It's — Red Bull did a similar thing, you used to do this with your Elevation Challenge on Strava, yes, where you would give the winner of your elevation challenge the opportunity to go run wherever they wanted. Yeah, we let them choose. I'll take your run, literally, me. Yeah, I'll take your run, wherever you want. In Australia, we ended up at — we ended up in the NT, we — most people, I'm just trying to think, have we ever gone anywhere else? In the end, everyone just wanted to go and run in the NT, but I kind of sell it to them as well, you wanted to go run in the NT,

[41:46] I wanted to go, and run in the NT, and I'm like, I'll show you a good time out there. Shout out, shout out to Fractal too, because they did — they supported us and helped us with our hats for Red Bull Race the Sun. Yeah, yeah, good mob there. I met the Fractal crew at the Western States actually — Jake, is it Jake, I might be getting his name wrong. I mean, he was there supporting there, right behind Holly Ransom, with their crew, blonde hair. Yeah, yeah, they're right, they're right behind Holly Ransom with a runner over in the Western States. Yep. Okay, so we got some stuff to

[42:18] catch up on from last week. We've got Brit, Brit physio, Brit actually told us — we're talking about running for kids, remember that — we're talking about, like, the Kiwi, yeah, Ruth, Ruth, Ruth, Ruth. So Ruth — off the back of Ruth we're talking about a lot of feedback on that. Yeah, how much is too much. Yeah, wait, I've got this — can you find, Brooker wrote in, also an experience, oh yeah, can you find that while I

[42:49] quickly — I will explain, anyway, the AIS, I've done a study, has told us, fantastic, and we're waiting for that to drop. So hopefully that's got more information on what we're trying to ask about — how much is too much, when to specialise. Help parents understand a little bit better in the elite sport. Great, what's going to work best. If you got — yeah, Brooker jumped on and commented on last week's episode, saying, just on the kids and time spent training, I took my 14-year-old daughter, who's a triathlete, to a sports medicine physician a few months back, and asked her opinion on training load at this age. And she said, as a general guide,

[43:21] not to exceed one hour per week per year of age. So in my daughter's case, fourteen hours of activity. Oh, so she's kind of like — they had a rule of thumb, a rule of thumb, right. She did say to be careful that this, also this fourteen hours, needs to include incidental exercise, like PE at school, touch footy, etcetera, not just her training programme. Ultimately, all about having fun though. So that's — and that's a key thing, right, because your kids, or my kids certainly, would have one hour of incidental exercise every day.

[43:54] Yep, running around at little lunch, lunch — not, like an adult, in the morning, right, you're going to clock up that hour super quick, without having anything structured in. Then when you add on top, your structured programming — so let's assume you get your kid gets one hour of incidental exercise every day, you're already down to seven hours of structured training. So it's — that's just the rule of thumb that Brooker had with their physician, with their 14-year-old daughter. But really interesting insight. Well, it's good. Well, I mean, that's what we

[44:24] talked about — who is the expert in this space, right? But I love that it's a parent working with their kid, working with their, well, physician expertise. Yeah, that is expertise, right. I'd listen to a doctor over me. Yeah, then. I would, well, by the way, it depends. On most doctors, you never listen to the doctors over you, famously, that's something you don't do. But you never do what you say, tell people the right information, right? Yeah, I couldn't even do a session this morning. No, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So we'll come back to you once

[44:54] this AIS study — we'll dig into that. So let us know when it drops. Quick shout out from last week's episode as well — Cadel Barnes wanted to let us know we went down a bit of the World Cup chat, and that Lamine Yamal is from Spain, not Brazil. So, and as I responded, as I responded to Cadel, we are running experts, not football experts. So apologies, Lamine Yamal, a little Spanish. Quick one — Tara Smith also wrote in, a great story about her running, you know, she said, sorry about the novel, but pretty much like

[45:25] like so many of our listeners, especially — it's around that backstory of, like, hated running, got to their mid-30s or 30s, wanted to prove stuff for themselves, got forward — and then fast forward to why she's running the Gold Coast Marathon this year. So she'll be out there — her dad had a little bit of health problems, and passed away, unfortunately, after a stroke. So — good luck with all the training, and thanks for listening along, Tara. Yeah. Beautiful. I like — well, you'll see Liam at the marathon finish line. Come find me at the finish line, Tara,

[45:56] give you a big high-five and celebrate your achievement. Yep, another one — off the back of last week we had Kai, who coaches Allie. This squad is becoming just an absolute — it's a very elite squad, isn't it? I thought I might have seen them down at the Spit while I was doing my session, because — talk about early risers, they are finishing. I generally roll into the Spit when I go there to run, probably around 5:45 or so, and they are finishing their

[46:30] session. Yeah, and they do a long session, so they're doing, like, you know, 20K sessions, and they're already wrapping up and at the coffee shop before I even get started. I know we spoke with Allie — what is it, a month or two back — and I am so excited to see, because everything I see her doing on Strava and on socials, it seems like she's nailing her training. Yeah, it seems like her prep is going

[47:01] really well. Yeah, it was a great chat learning about it all too. And now, as we get — we're two weeks out. And I'm very scared to race it, by the way, too. Well, I don't think you should be. Oh, I don't want you to. Okay, I don't want you to — well, I do want you to, but I also, I'm just really excited, because this is somebody local who, you know, is really just sinking her teeth into running, with some big goals, you know, she said here she wants to make the Olympics. Yeah, yeah, so Kyle, Kyle said —

[47:31] and this is a good one, because off the back you were talking about, at the World Majors, having a shoe register — or, like, not just majors, just anywhere. So the goal, at the ASICS Gold Coast Marathon, let's do a shoe count. Or, did you talk about it — it was more about it, like, cross country, right, the top shoes, the idea — nominated shoes, the idea that you could run as part of a shoe team. So for the Gold Coast, ASICS Gold Coast Marathon, in a couple of weeks, Courtney, you would be running not only as Courtney Atkinson, but also as part of

[48:03] Team Nike Alpha Fly. Yeah, right, and then we'll see which shoe's set up, like, at the — I'm pretty sure ASICS would win at the Gold Coast, they'll have a lot of, a lot of — but wouldn't it be great to be able to see that data at the end? Yeah, oh, bloody, oh yeah, we all want to know the data. No shoe count, we've got no confirmation on that — there's no — well, there hasn't been, I don't know if they've taken our advice and done a shoe count this year. It'd be nice. Anyway, back to Kyle — hey guys, love your work as always, on the

[48:33] topic of nominating your shoes when entering a marathon. Wouldn't it be cool if, for the Gold Coast Marathon, you entered with your city, so you'd have Gold Coast versus Brisbane versus Sunshine Coast versus Sydney, Melbourne, etcetera. Top 50 males, top 50 females, scored cross-country style — 50's a decent sample, so it takes in a lot of people. It's not just which city has the fastest runner, but which city has the best running depth.

[49:04] Yeah, okay, I've got one for you, it's a good number. I don't think we need this to happen ourselves, we can get an AI to pull the results for us, because everyone in their entry — I'm not sure if it's in the results, but if you go into the entry list for the Gold Coast Marathon, everyone puts in where they're from. Yeah, we could do this, Kyle — not saying I'm going to, but we could. We could do this. I'm just having a look.

[49:36] Anyone with spare time out there, feel free to take our idea — In The Beginning era, call it the In The Beginning Cup, individual times, Kyle's idea, team results. No, no, no, he doesn't get it, we get it. I'm just having a look — the Gold Coast Marathon 2025 podium, for example, they're all Japanese athletes, and it does list the country you represent, straight up on the results page. Results is country, but I'm pretty sure where you go to actually see the

[50:07] entry list, where you go to see the actual list of entrants — it might not be up yet, but they'll put it up at some stage. That's what I'm talking about, the entry list will have countries in there. So if you could correlate the countries from the entry list with the finish times, I believe we could make it happen. There's software that could do that for us these days. It'd just be good — again, we're talking about extra things you could put in, like the shoe idea. But this segment really

[50:38] should be in our Gold Coast Marathon series coverage. Ultimately, for every event organiser, race director — who do you think would win that? Let us know in the comments, because I think there's a notion that Melbourne is the home of running in Australia. If we did a State-of-Origin-style running edition, city versus city,

[51:13] with 50 deep, I reckon Melbourne wins. Location plays into it, a lot of people travel, but I think Melbourne wins. You'd better not put Queensland last though — well, can I even count Queensland properly, that's the difficulty QLD has, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Gold Coast are all separate, whereas Sydney gets counted as one city. If you grouped South-East Queensland as one entity, that

[51:44] would be fair, and I reckon that's your podium — South-East Queensland, Melbourne, Sydney — because they'd have similar population density. Unfortunately Adelaide, Perth and Tasmania as a whole would probably struggle, and then the rest would be a combined regional team, like the Allies concept in AFL — actually, don't do that, that idea got scrapped because it diluted things lumping teams together. I liked that idea though, good thinking. Caroline — I can't quite make out her surname,

[52:15] but she wrote in — Luke, Doctor Luke, from the other Gold Coast Marathon series. Caroline's been a listener from the start, and Luke is one of her lecturers. Oh, fantastic — she wrote in saying she couldn't believe it when she jumped on the pod and there was her own lecturer. Hey, just quickly, to switch gears for a minute — another thing I probably should be saving for a Gold Coast

[52:45] Marathon series episode. But what do you think about this idea? Liesl Jones, I've dragged her in for the 5K, and she's single, and we're proposing she runs in a T-shirt with a QR code saying, if you're interested in dating me, please scan it — tied into Triple M Gold. What did she think of it? She's on board — she's like, yeah, go for it, right — but she said there's going to be a catch, you'll have to run

[53:15] pretty slow to actually get the scan, because she's not running fast, in fact she'll probably walk it. But anyway, if you're in the 5K or just spectating on the Saturday, keep an eye out for Liesl Jones, single, with a QR code. Different from the one where you run holding your phone up — no, that's separate, we covered that on our Gold Coast episode on Wednesday, go back and listen if you missed it. But it made me realise there's a lot of extra stuff to sort for the marathon — nutrition, clothing, headphones.

[53:48] You're not going to run with headphones, are you? I think I actually am. What do you mean, you're famously anti-headphones. I am famously anti-headphones, but here's my dilemma — what would I even listen to, music? What I've worked out from the pacing is I'm not really going to be racing this properly, which is a strange thing to say. I'm not in the race.

[54:20] It is, my fitness level means I'll be holding back through the whole marathon — we've talked about that first 30K or so, I'll be holding right back — so I think just running along with

[54:50] a bit of background noise could actually be beneficial to me this time. Shoot me down if that's a bad idea. No, I'm on board with it. The only question now — not next Wednesday, but the one after — is the playlist. Exactly, we'll need some insight into what's on it, I'd like to hear that. Anything else before we wrap up today — have you watched any of the FIFA

[55:22] Football World Cup? I already told you about my week, no I haven't. I was at the Ironman finish in Cairns and could see across to some restaurant, maybe the Shangri-La behind me, and there was a massive roar and everyone kept jumping up screaming. I thought it was for the Ironman finishers, but no, it was the World Cup — what a start. I just want to quickly rave about it.

[55:54] The Socceroos' profile right now is best summed up by my daughter, who asked my wife Alana ahead of the first game against Turkey whether the Socceroos are the boy Matildas, because that's where all the branding attention's been. I was going to say the same — the Matildas have been so dominant and front of mind that the Socceroos have fallen out of consideration. Huge opportunity right now for that brand, and they're not

[56:25] competing against each other, but every national team is competing for space in Australians' hearts and minds, because we love our sport so much. How did your daughter even know about the Socceroos and the World Cup starting — is that you talking about it at home? Both Alana and I love it, and I've obviously been talking to Alana and Quinn about the World Cup starting this weekend. So it's been driven by you at home, not from school — because I wonder whether kids would even register it

[56:59] if their family isn't into soccer clubs. Maybe now, after the win, but before the weekend, do you think it would have crossed a kid's mind if they weren't already part of that world? For example, for State of Origin Game One, my kids' school had a dress-up day where you're meant to wear your origin colours, sports uniforms, and Quinn wore a Matildas top because she loves soccer. But building into Game One,

[57:29] we've talked before about AI and its use in running coaching — AI will never replace football coaching, because of what Tony Popovic, the Socceroos coach, did ahead of the Turkey game, benching captain Mat Ryan and bringing in Patrick Beach, who'd played

[58:01] only a handful of times for Australia, a 23-year-old from Melbourne City in the A-League. Benching one of the most experienced Socceroos we've ever had for that kid, who arguably should have been player of the match — Nestory Irankunda was incredible too, the goal-scorer was unbelievable, everyone will be talking about him — but Patrick Beach, what he did in goal between the posts was unbelievable. No AI would have made that call — a fantasy-manager algorithm's

[58:32] recommendation would be don't take Mat Ryan out of goal. But Tony Popovic made that call, along with putting young Paul Okon-Engblom into the starting side rather than sticking with the safer team. It's never been easy to get out of the group — there are 48 teams, and it's first place, runner-up, and the eight best third-place teams across fourteen groups that advance. We should make the next stage, right?

[59:04] But this weekend's game — and by the time people hear this we'll already know the result against the USA, since it's 5am Saturday morning here — is a different proposition, because after already qualifying out of the group, people tuning in for the US game will be huge. We've genuinely got a national team to get behind now. You're dead right, I agree with everything you said — they've put their name on the map. I actually talked about this as a hypothetical on the radio the other day, off air.

[59:36] It's like the last hundred-metre sprint at the Olympics — FIFA Football World Cup success is one of the last mountains left for Australian sport to climb. We've won the Tour de France, had boxing world champions, NBA players at the highest level, won Olympic medals in basketball, had players in every top league around the world, dominated at Winter and Summer Olympics —

[01:00:08] we've won almost everything. But as far as blue-ribbon sports go, actually winning a FIFA World Cup, I genuinely think it would alter the landscape of sport in this country. Couldn't agree more — it would take football from being our third-choice code to genuinely threatening the top two, and it

[01:00:38] would also change the A-League, because it'd force real investment into where we sit in world football. We could talk about this for another half hour, because is the A-League ever going to have the ammunition regardless of what we do — I've got a whole theory on the A-League, but just to show how differently things are done — you're talking about the World Cup over

[01:01:08] in the States, co-hosted across the US, Canada and Mexico, and teams like Iran having to fly in and out of Mexico on game days. Did you see the White House opening ceremony stuff — the Freedom 250? Beau Ryan was across at that event. It's the definition of entitlement, holding a UFC fight on the front lawn of the White House because it's your birthday,

[01:01:38] Donald Trump. It sounds wild — don't spoil it for me, I still haven't watched the fight results. But separately, some of the crew I love watching — I know Ryan Kelso will be all over this, one of our big fans — Travis Pastrana and his old nemesis Deegan, who properly hated each other back in their Moto X days,

[01:02:10] got a call saying, mate, want to come backflip at the White House? And they did — not only did they open with UFC, they had the old-school Crusty Demons and Nitro Circus riders backflipping their motorbikes across the lawn. We talked about it on the radio show too — someone said it was the most American thing ever, a jet flew over, then a bald eagle landed on the stage. I loved that it was done the right way too, in the

[01:02:42] sense that it was all for the Marines and for the crowd there beyond just the media coverage, for the right reasons. Bloody amazing. Sport at the moment is wild — we didn't even get to the New York Knicks. We could sit here for ages talking about all of this, but one day we'll do a full non-running episode. Here's hoping we've knocked off the US this morning in game two of the Socceroos' World Cup campaign. That's all from us.

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