> ## 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.

# EP32 - STRAVA'S BIG POWER MOVE
- URL: https://www.inthebeginningpodcast.com/ep32-strava-s-big-power-move/
- Published: 2025-04-25T06:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-20T04:25:19.000Z
- Description: Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on Strava culture, UTA & ultras, Olympics & 2032 — recorded on the Gold Coast.
- Author: Courtney Atkinson
- Tags: Episodes, Main Feed, Strava, Ultra Running, Olympics, Marathon Training, #Import 2026-07-28 20:58

*Courtney Atkinson and Liam Flanagan on Strava culture, UTA & ultras, Olympics & 2032 — recorded on the Gold Coast.*

## Listen

Listen on [Spotify](https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/inthebeginningpodcast/episodes/EP32---STRAVAS-BIG-POWER-MOVE-e31uvip?ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep32-stravas-big-power-move/id1772010786?i=1000704940423&uo=4&ref=inthebeginningpodcast.com).

## Full transcript

Auto-generated transcript. Timestamps approximate. Hosts: Courtney Atkinson & Liam Flanagan.

**Read the full transcript** 

\[00:00\] In the beginning, we're back. Courtney, where are you? We're doing this remotely today. It's one of those weeks - I'm in Port Stephens at the moment, flew into Newcastle yesterday. Beautiful part of the world. Hey, you remember when I sent you up on that Matt Hall world champion aerobatics plane, and you chucked up? Well, I went up with Matt Hall yesterday in the Red Bull aerobatics. Do you want to talk about it? I did, didn't I?

\[00:30\] Didn't chuck up, but you know what, I also wimped out - I only went to six G's. OK, quick catch-up for anybody who doesn't know about Matt Hall. If you've ever seen that Red Bull plane racing between pylons or looping loops - if you've been to any event on the Gold Coast, or basically anywhere in Australia for that matter - Matt Hall's the bloke making it do all that incredible stuff. What was it, probably two years ago now, Courtney, you extended me an invitation to go and have a ride in Matt Hall's

\[01:01\] Red Bull plane. And I'll tell you what, we'll get the footage of what happened to me, because Matt did everything and it ruined me. It ruined me for the day - I was gone. I threw up in the plane, I threw up when I got out of the plane, I threw up on the drive back to the studio afterwards. I was green. It was amazing and I'm so glad I

\[01:33\] did it, but never again. Well, you know what, I reckon I've sent probably 20 people up with Matt, I've sat through the briefings, and I've managed to avoid it until yesterday. And the irony is I didn't actually go there with Red Bull - I went there with Subaru and had to do it. So there you go, full circle, but I survived. You're down in Port Stephens doing some stuff with Subaru - I'm on a filming trip with them and we're heading out towards Lightning Ridge. Remember early on, like when

\[02:04\] I flew over to Mauritius not long ago and said I had no idea where Mauritius was? Well, until yesterday I had no idea where Lightning Ridge was either. I thought it was out near Broken Hill, but looking at a map it's up near the Queensland border, so I may as well drive home. Right, so you're out and about doing stuff with Subaru - no doubt we'll have some stuff to talk about next week. But let's jump into the biggest story in the running world, and it's not tomorrow's London Marathon, and it's not last weekend's Boston Marathon. We'll talk a little bit about those in a minute.

\[02:34\] It's Strava, and what they acquired this week I suppose. That's the Runna app. It's interesting because there's not a lot of information beyond the fact they've just acquired it - we don't know whether they're going to integrate it or how it's going to work. But it's funny, because I'd probably never really heard of Runna until we started doing this podcast. Once we started, obviously doing a running podcast, we'd turn up in the running charts and

\[03:04\] this thing called Runna kept also showing up. They've got a podcast themselves, and I was going, hang on, I don't know about this in Australia - is it a UK-based app that does well here too? And then it clicked - it's an AI training app, and they've got a great big audience who use it, which translates across to the podcast as well. And now they've been picked up by Strava. So this is interesting, that's

\[03:35\] let's just pull the thread on this for a bit, and what it might mean for running, because you've got the social media platform for running in Strava now essentially bringing in under its umbrella the dominant training-plan-creation platform. So suddenly Strava goes from simply being a place where people share their races and their training, to suddenly

\[04:08\] sharing all that information as well as staying on that platform for your training needs. So Strava as an environment stretches beyond what it currently is - I guess from an online, digital perspective, it almost becomes a one-stop shop for running, for runners. I wonder, yeah - like I said, we don't know exactly where it's going to land. Will they keep it separate to the app and

\[04:40\] just profit off the fact that it's a training base? I'd hope they don't - I'd love to see it integrated. I read an interesting thing around, you know, obviously Strava has their free platform and then their paid tiers. I'm assuming, reading it now, it's going to be US dollars, but $80 a year unlocks premium features on Strava. Runna is a paid app and the subscription costs $120 a year, so Runna's actually

\[05:11\] more expensive than a Strava premium subscription at the moment, which makes me think - how do they integrate that? Do you get a discount? So many questions. But I think this is a great thing for running, and those who - like we always say, having a coach and having someone to individualise everything is #1 - but if they can integrate this into Strava the right way, I think it's going to be a big benefit to most people. If you read the press release from Strava announcing the acquisition, the other thing I find interesting is they say, according to

\[05:44\] Strava's year-in-sport data, running is the fastest-growing sport globally. Of course their data is going to support their business model, I get that. But the next line in the press release is the one that grabs me, because it says Gen Z in particular are returning to running to create community and connection, which has created a sharp increase in race participation, with 43% of Strava users wanting to conquer a big race or event in 2025, which is then leading to this demand for

\[06:14\] training plans. So that gives you a bit of an insight into how Strava will utilise what Runna does. But I think right now, my mind immediately goes to Strava and Runna sitting down with every major marathon, every major running event or adventure race of note, and going, hey, sit down with us,

\[06:46\] advertise with us. We can offer your potential participants not only training programs, but a community to be a part of online in the lead-up to the event. Well, it's definitely - you talk about domination, there's a lot of different apps out there, a lot of different training programs, online coaches and everything else. I suppose with the Strava platform, it really puts this on a pedestal - will they

\[07:18\] rebrand it? Will Runna as an app disappear and just get integrated? These are all the questions I've got. Yeah, just quickly, I do want to talk a little elite running, because for those not obsessed with following marathons around the world, there's been a bit of news last week. We had the Boston Marathon, one of the real storied events on the running calendar. John Korir - I'm not sure I'm saying his surname correctly - John Korir from Kenya took out

\[07:49\] the men's race in 2:04:45, and the women's race was won by Sharon Lokedi in 2:17:22, which I think was a course record for Sharon. But going back to John, the men's race winner - I'm not sure if you saw it, Courtney, but there's a real moment right at the very beginning of the race where he gets flattened. He gets absolutely smashed, basically completely trampled through the elite pack and spat out the back. You see the elite pack take off, and then you see John pick

\[08:24\] himself up off the deck and have to run and catch up, and he goes on to win it in an incredible time. I loved it, because it was such an awesome metaphor for running in general. No, I didn't see that one, Liam, but that just shows you - if anyone's racing, you don't want to fall over at the beginning, but it doesn't matter what level you're running at, whether it's the lead or whether you're just out there. If the start of the race doesn't go to plan, if you're not feeling great at the start, all of those

\[08:55\] things - in distance running, not just marathoning, but any of these distances - there's time to come back. You can relax, you can regroup, you go through the ups and downs, and even the best go through that and can come back. Shout-out to Aussie Pat Tiernan, who ran the second-fastest Boston Marathon time by an Australian ever - he ran 2:08:08\. He had a stint at the front of the lead pack, but ended up finishing 11th. Still an epic run by Pat Tiernan. But I want to talk about, as we record this, the London Marathon,

\[09:28\] which is happening on Sunday - tomorrow if you're listening on Saturday, maybe today if you're listening on Sunday, or maybe it's already finished. But Courtney, the reason I really want to lean into it now is the Alex Yee storyline heading into this. If you don't know Alex Yee, we've talked a bit about him on the podcast before - he's the reigning Olympic gold medallist in your sport, triathlon. That incredible finish over Hayden Wilde, the New Zealand athlete, where he was behind him by 15 seconds and ran him down

\[09:58\] basically in the finishing chute. It was one of the moments of the Olympic Games, and he's making his marathon debut tomorrow. I've got some quotes from an interview he's done that I want to share with you, Courtney, but first - he's targeting an incredible time, I think somewhere between 2:06 and 2:10, so right up the pointy end. Are you interested to see how he goes?

\[10:29\] Yeah. If you use Boston as the example, I probably wasn't really across it - I looked at a bit of the results at the end. But I'm interested in London for this story, and from what I've heard on the grapevine as well, there's another - and I've forgotten his name - the other young Brit who Alex raced against as a junior, and they were very similar. He's racing him, and I think he's kind of the headlining guy as well, so there's a race within the race itself. But the fact he's actually going

\[11:00\] out by the sounds of it and really attacking 2:05, 2:06 - that's what his training's been pointing towards, I think it's super exciting. Even if he gets out there and blows up, everyone who follows triathlon at least is going to be interested to see how he goes. I know Alistair Brownlee, and I think Jonny Brownlee might have done it as well, and definitely some of the Spanish guys would rock over to the US and do a couple of the big track races there

\[11:30\] to get 10K times. So this is the first time I've really seen someone in their prime from short-course triathlon going over into the marathon, so yeah, super exciting mate. I want to share - he's done this interview, and I'm going to read through some quotes and pick your brain, because I think it's interesting seeing his mentality heading into this. I think it was with the Guardian, apologies if I've got the source wrong: 'Honestly, it's an excitement about the unknown. As elite athletes we're used to

\[12:02\] hurting ourselves and going through that pain. I've been in some dark places before, and in a weird way I'm probably quite looking forward to experiencing this different kind of pain. I'm excited rather than daunted.' Courtney, you've raced Olympic triathlon, you've run marathons as part of an Ironman - you've never straight-up raced an Ironman marathon. Can you talk us through the pain difference between redlining during an Olympic-distance run versus what Alex might experience in the London Marathon? Yeah, I think - at least

\[12:33\] in the Olympic distance, we're talking - you're at that red line, but you're only there on the run for 10K. Yes, you've had the bike before it, yes you've been taxed in the swim, but your actual running muscles are only running for that 10K, so you don't generally get that breakdown in those muscles as much as Alex is going to face in a marathon. The flip side is in longer-course triathlon - yes, in an Ironman you're running a marathon, but you're nowhere near red-line speed.

\[13:05\] So the breakdown is a different feeling, a different attribute. What he's going to face in a marathon is - well, he's got the fitness, he's out riding five hours every week, I heard he's still swimming five sessions a week going into this race, so he hasn't lost any of that base. If anything, he's probably going into it with more aerobic base than any other runner there. But what he hasn't faced, and probably hasn't done the volume of running

\[13:38\] that some of the others will have done, is how do you tax that muscle for just over two hours, and how does it break down? That's going to be the big question. He should be fine to get through 20 to 30K - it's then how you handle that last 10K. And like the marathoners I know from the top end here in Australia all say the same thing, it comes down like a tonne of bricks in that last 10K. Well, and he went on to

\[14:09\] say in this interview - he's talked about running parts of the London course, going out and running his goal race pace for 30K, and he said, 'I felt under control, but there's an element of the unknown, and that's one of the big reasons I'm doing the race, to feel that excitement. It's a massive stab in the dark for me to even have the audacity to try this - win, lose or draw. I think there'll be personal growth, hopefully physical growth too.' This is the other part I wanted to talk to you about, because we love - we're jumping ahead, we normally save the shoe chat and gear chat for the end of the pod, but I want to bring it

\[14:39\] in quickly here before I get to Alex's quote. On the Boston Marathon, I want to run people through what was on the feet of the podium finishers. In the men's race, John Korir, the Kenyan who won it, was running ASICS Metaspeeds - silver and bronze were both wearing Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2\. In the women's race it was really interesting, because Sharon Lokedi, the winner, was wearing Under Armour Velocity

\[15:10\] Elite 3, so she was in Under Armour. Second was in On Cloudboom Strike LS, and third place was in Nike Alphaflys - a real mix of shoes on the podium in Boston. Alex, tomorrow in the London event, has said keep an eye on what he's wearing on his feet, as he's been working very closely with New Balance on a new shoe. He's been involved a little in the development and testing, and it makes him feel like he's in

\[15:40\] the best shoe for the marathon. So I'm as interested in what Alex is wearing on his feet in the race as I am in his time - I can't wait to see what shoes he's in. Yeah, everyone's looking at shoes at the moment, so many companies are dropping them so much faster, these super shoes keep coming. Going off on a tangent - new shoes at the moment, Jordan. Nice Kicks just did a great

\[16:10\] YouTube clip about the trial of Luka - I think the basketballer's name is Luka Doncic, hopefully I've got that right - he's literally just got a new shoe, and they did a seven-minute video about it. He's the bad-guy basketballer, but the jury can't get over his shoes, and how his shoes overcome the villain thing all the time because they look so brilliant. That made me think of running at the same time, because at the moment, every time there's a race on, like you just mentioned, I want to know what shoes they're wearing. We've often said on the podcast

\[16:42\] that we don't necessarily know who's winning the races - maybe we don't recognise the names as much unless you're fully in the elite side of marathoning. But what we all do, whether you're a beginner, an intermediate, or someone like us talking about it, everyone wants to know what shoes they're wearing. The shoe nearly becomes more important than the name sometimes in these cases. But when you put the shoe and the name together, that's when the magic happens. So I'll be really interested to see this New Balance shoe. Well, maybe you

\[17:15\] know, we saw Noah Lyles after he won the 100 metres in Paris last year - he said he wants a shoe, and he doesn't want a track shoe, he wants a trainer, Jordan-style, a name-branded trainer. Maybe tomorrow we'll see Alex Yee running in the Alex Yee model of New Balance, who knows. We'll keep an eye on that. But let's move on, because - speaking of equipment, speaking of gear, I don't know how to describe this best, but I want to share a message we got on the show page from Claudio.

\[17:48\] Claudio has messaged the podcast and said, 'Hello Courtney and Liam, my name is Claudio, I live in Madrid' - shout-out to our Spanish listeners. Claudio said, 'I started listening to the podcast when it appeared in my feed after a family trip to Australia' - thank you Spotify, thank you Apple Podcasts for pushing our podcast out internationally. Claudio said, 'I've listened to all the episodes already, and right now I'm tapering for my first marathon ever in Madrid, through the

\[18:20\] city, a tough course, hopefully it goes well.' Awesome, Claudio, this is great news, I'm excited - please tell us how you go in your marathon. But this is what I want to get to: Claudio said, 'I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a post from Iván Raña, an old-school Spanish athlete who competed against your very own Courtney Atkinson.' Courtney, how do you feel about your old style? I'm sure some young fellas would think this is quite trendy nowadays. Courtney, you do the editing on this, I insist that right now this

\[18:52\] photo gets put up of you in your dick-stickers and a tight lycra singlet - talk us through the look. What do you remember about this race? Do you remember Iván? Tell us about this picture. Oh, I saw Iván actually tagged me on this, so I saw it myself and I reposted it. I don't often post old things from the past, but this was back in 2000, and Iván was pretty much - around World Juniors - you

\[19:24\] know, my main competitor, I suppose, when I was racing at that time. We made the jump into the senior ranks pretty quickly. This was a World Cup at the time, both of us probably only 19 or 20 years of age. But I think what everyone's looking at is what we're wearing, right? Yes, we did race in dick-stickers - number two though, and thanks, Claudio, for saying, Courtney, you won the race, so don't let Liam embarrass you.

\[19:57\] I can't remember this race exactly, I do know it was in a place called Ishigaki. I had a good run of World Cups down in Ishigaki. Tangent - Ishigaki, for those who don't know, is an island in Japan. Most people know Okinawa, right down in the south, the southern islands of Japan. Ishigaki is right over towards Taiwan, miles away from the Japanese mainland, but still Japan. It's like a tropical island we'd go to once a year to

\[20:27\] race. What I mean here though is a pair of speed-dealer Oakleys, just like the ones I showed you last week. What everyone's been telling me is this is exactly what Gen Z are wearing right now out there - pretty much five-panel hats, five-panel hats, a pair of speed dealers. OK, maybe not the dick-stickers, but singlets, nearly shirtless. This is vintage. But like they say,

\[20:58\] everything vintage comes back around, and this is in fashion right now. But I'll put the picture up and we'll let everyone decide. Well, just quickly - what year was this? This would have been 2000\. OK, so by that metric, what we need to do on In the Beginning is go and check out what you were wearing - go into your archives and figure out what you were rolling in around 2005, because that's what's gonna come

\[21:30\] back and be hot again next. If In the Beginning ever starts doing some merch from the podcast, Courtney, it needs to be whatever you were racing in around 2005\. Alright, I've got some homework then. Triathletes have definitely never been shy of lycra, have they - and this is pre-full-lycra days, this is where we're wearing pretty little bits. I'll tell you what, when you crashed, you knew about it - skin coming off everywhere.

\[22:00\] Can I ask, before we move on from this - what's the worst crash you've ever had? In terms of bark off the legs and the arms, what was the worst one? The worst crash I ever had was probably my first crash, and I remember it plain as day. Those who are on the Gold Coast and right around the Gold Coast will know the first corner on Springbrook after the water tower, it's literally a sweeping left-hander. I'd never come down a mountain

\[22:30\] in my life - I reckon I would've been probably 14 or 15, riding in a pair of trackies of all things. I came around that first sweeper and just laid the bike down straight across the bitumen, into the gravel, into the grass. I reckon that's how you learn - crashes, in the end, you learn from them. Can't go that far next time. And I reckon I did another thousand repeats up Springbrook over my lifetime, and that was

\[23:00\] the only crash I had on that one. Alright, quickly before we move on to Loose Ends - I've actually got a first-ever unboxing to do here on In the Beginning. Do we need to fix the Stawell Gift? Oh, look, I'm going to be transparent, I did not watch the Stawell Gift, but I've seen the aftermath of it. I'm going to tell a story first before we get into this. I had a masseur back in - I had a masseur who I won't say

\[23:31\] his name - he came from Melbourne, came back up to the Gold Coast, and every week, this is probably through the early days of my Olympic campaigns, I'd go up and get a rub off him. Now, he coached - he was the coach of the VFL boundary umpires. He's pretty handy a runner himself, was a good coach. He also used to get those boundary umpires ready for the Stawell Gift - not in the hundreds, but in a similar situation, in the mile and the 3000.

\[24:01\] Now, this is where it gets a bit rotten - some of those runners would nearly sandbag, in golfers' terms, for up to two years to make sure their handicap was ready for that one day, and then all the money would come down on them on that day. It was a scheme, it was a scam. I don't know if it still is, right now I don't have that information, but what I can tell you is where there's money and where there's betting,

\[24:32\] there's always going to be some funny business. So if you're like Courtney and you didn't catch what happened at Stawell over the Easter long weekend - I love the heritage, I love the nostalgia of Stawell, I love the fact that it's this iconic athletics meet in the middle of nowhere, the town has nothing else all year round except for this Easter racing weekend. It's cold as charity, I just love it.

\[25:03\] I love all the storytelling around this event, but everything needs to progress, everything needs to move forward, and if we don't adapt, things die. I wonder whether what we just witnessed this year is a sign that the Stawell Gift needs to adapt - I'm talking about the fact that the most exciting sprinters we've had in the history of Aussie sprinting, maybe ever in the case of Gout

\[25:33\] Gout - but certainly for a very long time, with Gout Gout and Lachie Kennedy, a 20-year-old and a 17-year-old both running sub-10, or touching sub-10 with wind assist, whatever - the point is, we're excited about them, we know their names, and neither of them made the men's final. Shout-out to Bree Rizzo, who took out the women's event off scratch, I loved it. We've talked about Bree and what a star she is of women's

\[26:03\] sprinting at the moment - to do it off scratch, you saw how much it meant to her, I loved that, I actually thought it was one of my favourite sporting moments of the year so far. But for the mainstream to have this young man Gout Gout capture all our attention - we've talked about what a noisy athlete he is, some of it his own choosing, some of it by our choosing - for him not to be in the final because he had to run off the scratch handicap and didn't make it through, I wonder whether Stawell and the people who run and organise

\[26:35\] it need to step back and go, do we need to make some changes here? Well, after listening to everything you just said, I'd go, that would make sense. But this is an event that's been running for a long time, and the nature of handicapping is - hey, should Gout Gout win? Everyone wanted to see the race and see the handicap make it work. But the reality is the whole purpose of handicapping is that everyone has an equal chance of winning, and the reality is what we just

\[27:06\] said - there are other athletes there for whom Stawell is just as important. The public want to see one thing, Stawell's been going a long time, and I'm sure this has happened over and over again. My question would be, how can you have a perfect system? Next year they could flip it and go too far the other way, and Gout runs in by 10 metres - are we going to be happy then? That's my question. It's a good point. Anyway.

\[27:36\] Look, it's the first time I think Stawell's probably made this much noise since - have you seen that clip that always does the rounds at this time every year where Cathy Freeman starts off a 56-metre handicap and runs down the 400? It's an awesome, awesome clip. Yeah, the one thing we can all agree on - we've talked about the Grand Slam Track and different ways of running track - this is a unique Australian thing. There are obviously handicaps all around the world,

\[28:06\] but Stawell has a lot of history, everyone knows it, TV supports it, the public support it. Maybe there's a little bit of a hiccup this year with some of the big stars missing, but it's not going to stop - I reckon it'll go on for years and years, and with athletics growing like it is too, it'll grow with it. So it's only a good thing. Alright, let's rip into some Loose Ends from last week. Courtney, get us into it. Yeah, so - mate, we're getting called out hard, and this has happened a few times, I've ignored it up until now,

\[28:37\] but people keep saying it very strongly, in an Australian accent - Saucony. Is that how you pronounce it? Sau-CON-y, I look at it and think Sau-CON-y. I think we should just stick with how we pronounce it - I've called it that for 20 years. Make your brand's name easier to

\[29:07\] pronounce if you've got an issue with it. But yeah, John Boy 76 was only one of many writing in - thanks mate, we do appreciate everyone writing in and the messages, and we acknowledge, yes, we're probably saying it wrong, but my mind just goes straight to Saucony every time. But mate, the shoes at the moment, like we said last week, are going - can I jump in quickly with a story about the great Mark Geyer? This is the first time MG has, and may ever,

\[29:39\] get mentioned on a running podcast. MG, the Wild Panther, the Penrith legend. I did a radio show with MG for four years, and the amount of times I had to pick him up or correct him on the things he was saying - but as he pointed out to me, after every time he made up a word, stuffed up a word, used the wrong word, he'd say, 'But did you know what I mean?' And I'd say yeah. And he'd say, 'Then what's the problem?' So when we say Saucony, you know what we mean.

\[30:10\] Too true, Liam, too true. Now, Jordan McGowan has written in: 'Hey guys, listening to this weekend's app as I typed this, talking around the pacing at Canberra.' This is what you brought up, Liam - straight up, it's unacceptable to be that fast, 10 minutes fast, and people have dropped off and missed their goal, pretty poor, especially when often these are free entries as volunteers. Now, I don't completely agree with that, because look,

\[30:41\] yes, they're volunteering, but it's not about the free entry - they're actually doing a service to everyone. So let's not jump on our pacers, we appreciate our pacers. Just my thoughts - it's good to be a little ahead, like a 30- to 60-second buffer, but 10 minutes is far too quick, and it's a shame they missed their goals. I've had a few people write in like this, and talk about a few pacers who've said to them as well that when they finish, they've heard about pacers slowing up right before the finish line.

\[31:11\] No, go either - if you're going to run in, run in, but pacers should - there's enough technology now that pacers should be on point. But you know what, I've never paced, and I'm assuming you've never paced, Liam, so we're just talking through stuff we don't really know. Let's jump straight into Wade from the Sunny Coast here. Wade's sent us a message saying, 'Playing catch-up on the pod while painting the house - you were talking about how Gatorade uses high fructose corn syrup versus Powerade using sucrose. I feel like we're heading down a science tunnel here.

\[31:42\] Courtney, I hope you're paying attention. So Gatorade uses high fructose corn syrup versus Powerade, which uses sucrose. In Australia, high fructose corn syrup is usually used in the USA - this is because we grow a lot more sugar cane versus the USA, which grows a lot of corn. Another example is we make more rum, made from sugar cane, versus the USA who make bourbon, made from corn. PS, worked for Coke for 24 years and was born in Bundy, so I grew up on a full sugar diet. Keep up the good work, fellas.' Shout-out Wade, that's good insight from Wade.

\[32:12\] Thank you, Wade - does that make sense to you? It does make sense, and I'll put my hand up, when I went to look at that, or someone actually wrote it and sent it in to us, and I was just relaying the information - but that's what you get for just looking online, you should go and pick up the bottle or the can and look for yourself. Obviously different ingredients in different countries, but yes, thanks Wade for sending that one in and setting us straight. Now, we've talked about the robot half marathon in the past, I don't want to spend too much

\[32:42\] time on it, Liam, but just touching on it, that happened over in - where was it, China - they had the robot half marathon, and the robot champion ran 2 hours 40\. They're not beating us just yet, so there you go, we'll put the reel up and show everyone what happened, but glad to see - lift your game, robots, you've got a long way to go. That they do, mate. I want to hear what's going on with you - how's your running week been? Quick catch-up, and if you're playing along with the Wednesday

\[33:14\] episodes where we're preparing for the Gold Coast Marathon, lacing up with Benita Willis at the helm - at the moment I feel like I'm wasting Benita's time, because we're two weeks into this marathon prep and I'm not running, because I've gone down with a soleus strain after week one. Basically the long and short of it is I didn't recover well

\[33:45\] from kunanyi, and I tried to jump back into a week of kilometres that my calves weren't ready for, and I'm paying the price now. So I'm literally playing it day by day at the moment - I'm talking to Benita regularly, I'm talking to my physio, and I'm trying to - look, the reality is, and I'll talk more about this next Wednesday because I'm

\[34:16\] sitting down with Benita and Bronte again, but the reality is I'm having to reassess the marathon goal, because I could persist and naively train for this, but I don't think - I'm already down to a 10-week prep instead of a 12-week prep, and I'm recovering from an injury, I'm not up to 100% running capacity, and it's just going to be probably beyond me.

\[34:48\] That being said, I'm not making any decisions, I'm going to wait for Benita to instruct me on this. But it's been really frustrating and disappointing, because I mean, I'm on a running podcast and I can't get myself running right at the moment. It really is frustrating, and I just want to be running, I really want to be invested

\[35:18\] in this training program as much as I can, and I can't at the moment because my calf doesn't want to play ball. All that being said - if you run, you're going to get injured, and if you're not doing the strength work, you're going to get injured, and if you're not recovering properly, you're going to get injured. These are all lessons that people out there are probably banging their head against the phone or the radio, however they're listening to this, because they're going through similar stuff, or they've been through similar stuff.

\[35:48\] So essentially, right now, my running is day to day, it's limited, and I'm hoping I'll be able to give people an idea of what my new marathon goal is soon, but for now I'm a day-to-day case. It sounds - I mean, I was out before you, so I think the main thing is we will continue to move forward, because

\[36:21\] there'll be other runners in the same situation, and there'll be other runners who face the same situation as they get closer to the marathon. So everything you'll be talking about with Benita, we're still going to be learning along the way. For those listening, in the next few episodes on the Wednesdays with Benita, we're still going to go through - we still want to extract all that information out of Benita for everyone. We're going to go through different scenarios, we're going to go through tapers, we're going to go through nutrition, we're still going to have plenty

\[36:53\] of information for you. But I think it's key that everyone, at some point in their marathon, is going to have to go through some kind of niggle, or go through something that's going to face them, and motivation, mate, is the hardest thing to get around. So it's not lost - get back, you've done plenty of running, and we're going to keep going. Absolutely, and in fact, the next episode dropping on Wednesday - we've had a lot of people ask about strength

\[37:24\] training specifically, and you can bet your ass that's going to be a big part of my conversation with Benita, about strength training and cross-training as part of a marathon program - when you might be limited on running, because of injury, or because of time, or because of weather, whatever the reason, you might be limited on your running, but there are things you can still be doing, and we'll be hitting those with Benita on Wednesday. A hundred percent - today I'll tell a bit of a running story. When we talk about

\[37:55\] races, and we said each week we're going to try and catch up on some local races - this one goes back, it's a bit of a vintage one. I was out at the Stockton Sand Dunes today - I don't know if you know Stockton Sand Dunes, it's down in Newcastle - and once you're up on top of them, I was on a quad bike doing some filming up there, and crazy enough I got to the same spot where we started - I did a 10-kilometre soft-sand race there. This goes back well before COVID, but it was a 10K soft-sand race called the Red Bull

\[38:28\] Dune Busters, in the Stockton Sand Dunes. What I remember about it - when you talk about unique races and what you go through, think of Dakar Rally, the motorbikes and cars in the sand dunes. In this run race they'd put high flags at the top of each dune, and you literally ran up the sand, and then you had to decide when you got to the dune - do you go straight up the guts in the soft sand, up the steep face, or do you run around

\[39:00\] and use the angles of the ridgeline a bit better to get to those flags? When you got to those flags, it was only then you saw the next part of the course, because there are big valleys between the sand dunes. So then you went to the next set of flags, did the same thing, the next set and the next set. It was probably one of the hardest run races I've done, and talking about shoes, it's the only time I've ever worn those Vibrams - the barefoot running shoes - and they didn't go too bad,

\[39:31\] and I didn't burn my feet. So that's where I'm at at the moment, not much running news, sitting around the Newcastle area doing some stuff. That race sounds horrible, I have zero interest in doing that race - no thank you. Feel free to not invite me ever to the Red Bull Sand Dune Busters, or whatever hell-on-earth that race sounds like it was called. Righto, let's keep rattling through - we've talked a little bit

\[40:02\] about the shoes everybody's going to be running in in Boston last weekend and London tomorrow, so we might move on from the gear chat today. But more listener questions - we love all this, keep sending them in. And also, can we just say, as the subscribers to this channel continue to fly, keep it going, keep sharing the love, keep subscribing, keep commenting - it's what drives the podcast into people's feeds, it allows us to get more

\[40:32\] audience, it allows us to continue to grow. So if you haven't already subscribed, please do, and if you've got friends who are running, share it with them, tell them to get involved, and flick us any questions they've got. These questions come through anonymously, and we're more than happy to keep you anonymous if you'd like. Anonymous says: 'Firstly, awesome podcast, thanks so much. I've got a moral dilemma type situation - when I ran a miler around a hundred-and-a-miler' - if you're not familiar with the lingo, a miler means a hundred-mile race.

\[41:05\] So Anonymous has run a miler, and this person said at around 120 kilometres in, there was another runner with a pacer - they got to a section where you had to go through a very technical section of bush, only around one kilometre, but due to the tree roots, rocks etc it was almost walking only, so really slowing down through a technical section of this 100-mile race. Anyhow, this pacer was waiting for the other runner and took them through a shortcut, saying, 'You don't have

\[41:35\] to worry about that section, it's only short.' So my question for the podcast and listeners - do you just run your own race, or do you dob in a dobber? Anonymous said they did, by the way, knowing they'd done the full 160-odd kilometres, and the context here is they were at the back of the pack. So essentially, to summarise, someone they were running against in this hundred-miler had cut some of the section to make it

\[42:06\] easier for themselves. Courtney, thoughts? Well, my first thought is you never cut the course, that's cheating, it's as simple as that, I don't have too much to say on it. Now, the dobbing element of it is the interesting part - oh man, I'm going to have to sit on the fence on this one. I'd just say you don't cut a course, you're really only cheating yourself in that case. Now, if the course is 100 miles or 120K,

\[42:39\] you couldn't be moving that quick anyway, so for someone to get off course knowingly and just miss a section - that's just not on, mate, not on. I'm with you, Anonymous, totally agree. My footy - we had a footy coach way back in the day who, when we'd do running sessions, used to love shouting out, you know, 'You're only cheating yourselves,' as though - when we were doing running sessions, if you were pulling up short, he was basically trying to instil some

\[43:11\] level of responsibility on us as individuals about what we were running. And annoyingly, it's always stuck with me - we take the piss a little bit, but you're only cheating yourself. And the reality is that person who cut the corner on the hundred-miler lives with that - they know they cut a kilometre off the course, they're the one who, when they put their head down at the end of the night, knows they cut the course. So as far as Anonymous needing to dob, I wouldn't waste your time. I wouldn't waste your time. Your thoughts, right - you didn't enter that race to

\[43:43\] beat that person, you entered the race because you wanted to see if you could complete a hundred-mile race, which you have. If anything, if somebody at your level of running needed to cut the course and cheat to get through it - if you don't want to be petty about it, it should give you an extra boost that they weren't capable of what you were. Well said, Liam - mate, I love that

\[44:13\] last bit - look after yourself, look after yourself. Now, Lincoln Jones wrote in to us: 'Gents, love the podcast. In one of the episodes I heard Courtney mention Triple Top mountain race on Mount Roland in Tasmania.' Yeah, this is one of the few races left I want to do in Australia that I haven't got to yet - three mountains, super technical, and it finishes with a 5K where you

\[44:43\] drop 1,000 metres in the final 5K to finish it. So you thought your legs hurt after kunanyi - this is, and it's a technical descent as well. He said, 'I ran this last year, and it is by far the hardest, most technical mountain race you will do in Australia.' He's going - OK, over the final 4K you descend over 1,000 metres, so even worse than a cliff face at some points. To give you an idea, it's roughly 19K, and the guy who won it last year did it in just over two hours.

\[45:13\] Yeah, so it's tough. Since Liam's the mountain runner now, I reckon you guys need to make your way back down to Tassie and give Triple Top a crack at the end of the year - what's your thoughts, Liam? Lincoln, if you're listening, you've just heard what kunanyi's done to my calves, so no, I don't think I need to find something even more taxing on my legs right now.

\[45:44\] Unless I get my legs and calves bulletproof with a better strength training program, in which case, why not - I'm all for trying stuff, and if it's a race that you've got on your radar, Courtney, let's go do it. Yeah, well mate, I've had an entry for two or three years now, and the kind organisers down there keep rolling it over for me, so I'll get down there one year - I still promise it's one race I want to do in Australia that I haven't yet. So I'll see you down there at

\[46:15\] some stage, Lincoln - so thanks for that. Kate Jones - hold on, hold on, I can't finish yet, because we have to make history for the podcast today, Courtney, because for the first time we're going to do an unboxing. Now, I know this was a trend about six years ago, but we're bringing it back, and we have a package to open, courtesy of - I'd go as far as to say, if he's not

\[46:46\] number one, he's certainly on the leaderboard, on the Strava leaderboard of #1 fans of this podcast - Ryan Kelso, the organiser of the Armidale Running Festival, who's trying to recruit us to be ambassadors for next year. He's sent us a package. OK, I'm going to do this in a very Wheel-of-Fortune style. Ryan has sent us some drink bottles, with

\[47:17\] my name on it - beautiful. What's on the back? With more than just your name on it, Courtney. This is why I'm going to do it Wheel-of-Fortune style, I'm going to spin it, and we'll have to turn this into video so people can see what we're talking about - but as I rotate it for the camera... oh, I think someone's been playing on AI. Hey, look at that - that is gold, that is gold. Ryan has taken what looks to be a still shot of the podcast,

\[47:47\] chucked it into one of those AI animator things, and it's spat out a logo of the two of us for In the Beginning podcast. He's whacked it on a couple of Yeti bottles that he's personalised for us. Firstly, thank you Ryan, this is ridiculous - never in our wildest dreams did we think this podcast would lead to us getting personalised drink bottles. But can we just talk about the logo for a second, Courtney - you look like a

\[48:18\] lumberjack, it's giving you the thickest, richest - I don't know if anybody out there is old enough to remember Home Improvement, the Tim Allen sitcom from the 90s - you look like Al Borland, Tim Allen's assistant from that show. Your beard is that thick and dark, and you look like you're hosting a hardware podcast more than a running podcast.

\[48:49\] But I, on the other hand, look worse - I look like a middle-aged unemployed man with a very quickly receding hairline. Oh mate, it's gold, I love this. Thanks Ryan mate, that's a lot of work gone into - these are amazing, Ryan, seriously, thank you, mate. And you are - I agree with Liam, you

\[49:21\] definitely - you've been there from the beginning, mate, and we appreciate everyone's support, you've been there right from the beginning, so thank you. Now, let me do this one, Courtney, please, because Kate Jones has sent this into the show, and I think it beautifully - you'll never understand what this is like, this is very much the every-person runner's mentality. I want people to remember this, because most of them will never win the race, but all of us are capable of this. This is Kate Jones sharing this, it's come through from

\[49:51\] Instagram - Nellie O'Hea has shared this on Instagram, and the saying is: if you're a runner, keep this in mind - win the event and they'll forget you by next year. Shit your pants and they'll remember you forever. Be memorable, that is. I couldn't agree more, and the perfect example - I don't know if Paula Radcliffe won the London Marathon, but I remember that she shit herself during it. Yeah, make sure you're ready to go for

\[50:21\] Wednesday. Thanks for staying patient with us through this one, our remote episodes are always a bit tricky for us, a few little technical gremlins. We appreciate your persistence, and again, share the love - this thing is building, it's growing, people are sending us stuff now, subscribers are going through the roof, the numbers are climbing. We'll see you on Wednesday for the marathon-specific ep.