ROAD TO NOOSA TRI #1: COURSE INTEL WITH OLYMPIC COACH DAN ATKINS

[00:00] In the Beginning Podcast, here it is — the first Road to Noosa Triathlon episode. You enjoyed the Road to the Gold Coast Marathon series so much, we've brought it back, Courtney, but in triathlon mode — we're adding cycling and swimming to the agenda. Excited, Courtney, because this series gives us an opportunity to dig into your past as well. How many times at Noosa? I'm just looking at the results because my memory is so bad — yeah, three. Three-time Noosa Triathlon champion. Well, obviously we're going to tap into your expertise

[00:30] throughout this series as well, but it is a true pleasure to welcome — as we did with the Gold Coast Marathon, we brought Benita Willis in-house to provide her expertise. Well, bring the experts, we absolutely do. We welcome in the national triathlon coach, the coach of Australia's current number-one male triathlete Matt Hauser — Dan Atkins, how are you? Always. Thanks, I'm glad you guys are finally talking triathlon. I'm a big fan of the pod and really excited to be able to put my spin on what is my sport, triathlon, and hopefully pump

[01:01] some athletes up before Noosa. You're on a high because this will come out in a few weeks — you've got to travel overseas with Matt for it. But he's just come off a massive win yesterday, right? Yeah, look, he's doing so well, and it's a series now, the World Championships. So post-Paris, where he got seventh, which was a great result, but obviously you walk away wanting a little bit more — you want that medal. We haven't had a male winner. He's in the box seat now, with worlds coming up in

[01:32] Australia, down in Wollongong. Yeah, it's been a long time since Australia's had a world champion, and it's looking really good — so congratulations. Thanks, straight off the bat. We're going to get into it — there's lots to talk about, and we do want to unpack Matt as an athlete as well. Braden Mercer is another one of the great Aussie males you train. Let's just jump straight into the Noosa course, though, because there'll be people listening who'll be chasing a PB this year, or maybe tackling Noosa Triathlon for the very first time.

[02:03] First thoughts on Noosa Triathlon — how should they be approaching this? I prefer athletes not to just get through the distance. The distance is a 1.5K swim, 40K ride and a 10K run — you need to break it down to the specifics of the course. You've got to understand it's potentially a surf swim — well, it is a surf swim, it's in the surf. We don't know yet what the water's going to be like, so there are so many variations in what that could be — there could be swell out the back, it could be tidal-assisted, it could be anything,

[02:34] running up the beach. There's nothing worse than standing up the first time out of the swim and having to run across that god-awful yellow sand, straight into the soft Noosa sand. Is heart rate — just quickly, you would have never raced Noosa as a surf swim? No, we were over with the sharks. I can't believe I've actually got some expertise over Courtney Atkinson talking about Noosa Triathlon — quickly, because I am, and for everybody out there, this isn't just going to be elite-level stuff, I can bring the proper amateur

[03:04] triathlon stuff to this. How many have you done? I've done ten — I've done ten. I swam in the canals with the bull sharks, and I've had both experiences, and I bunny-hopped around the edges because I'm not great at swimming. And then I've also had the experience one year, a couple of years back, where they had to shorten the swim because of the current out the back — people just could not get back in, or the plan was to swim back up the beach and the average swimmer wasn't going to be able to do that. So I've experienced all of it, in the ocean and the canal. And you talk about running — I'm sorry, I'm getting a bit off

[03:36] track for a moment. Yeah — there was an event in Sydney called the Splash and Dash, Reedy's event, the first year he ever held it at Bondi. I did this — I did this the first year, I possibly could have even won. One kilometre run along the soft sand of Bondi, then you went out the back and swam a kilometre, then another kilometre run. I was one of the people who almost had to be saved by the ski paddlers out the back, because as an amateur swimmer I had no concept of how much the lactic acid would build up during that one-K soft-sand run, and

[04:09] then a kilometre swim back up the beach. It was a nightmare trying to get back into that south end of Bondi Beach. The way we're going to run this whole series — the next episode we do is going to be really focused on swimming, so we'll get really direct, that overview, and get into the rolling-start stuff too, which changes everything, in the next episode. So stay tuned for the whole series. But back to the course — running across the sand is hard, it's about two minutes from the water's

[04:40] exit if you're good. Is there any other triathlon in the world — I'm just trying to think, Escape from Alcatraz, you've got a run too — that has as big a transition? Most of them are not really twenty seconds, right? No, it's what makes it iconic — you're out there in front of Noosa Surf Club, stunning. OK, sorry, I've got to jump in — we just said Noosa Surf Club, running up the beach, iconic. Dan, where do you see it — where should the Olympic triathlon be, Gold Coast?

[05:11] Good question. Look, Gold Coast or Noosa — you know what, I love Mooloolaba, that's a tough course, that's a very tough course. Noosa and Mooloolaba are my two favourite triathlons on the planet, along with Hamburg — but both of them are just stunning. For me, Mooloolaba's got the hills, it's got the surf swim which could be pumping, hopefully gives the Aussies an

[05:41] advantage. But Noosa, I think for the everyday Joe Blow, is a little bit more achievable. OK, there we go — so if we're going to give the Sunny Coast the triathlon, we get back the marathon for Gold Coast? Well, no, we've decided Brisbane's going to have the tri — let's stop drifting back into running, Jack. So on the Noosa course, it's the surf swim, and you've got to incorporate that two-minute-plus run from the ocean back to transition.

[06:11] Talk to us about the bike leg. You've got to be careful the first five minutes — you're going to be so full of adrenaline, you're going to see your friends and family, the crowds are packed, the club tents are packed, everyone's pumping you up, so you've got to be really mindful not to go too hard. And you've been in the salt water, so you want to get your hydration in — you've got to start that process, have a good system in place to get yourself ready for the 40K. But for me, the race doesn't start till the hill — the first 10K out of town is nice and rolling downhill,

[06:41] and then you hit the hill — Garmin Hill. How long is Garmin Hill? I was going to look it up — three K, I think. They used to have a timing split there when they ran the race — do they still do that? Yeah, they still do — the timing split at the top, king of Garmin Hill, queen of Garmin Hill. But it's the point in the race where, if there's still a pack, or you're in the age-group race and there are packs together, everyone's trying to stay out of each other's way — it's the one place that can break everything up, 100%.

[07:13] Yep, and I think everyone thinks the hill is the game-changer, and the elite athletes I work with — we obviously focus on training after 10K in a session, so we specifically train for it, to be able to say the race starts at the base of the hill. Now, we're going to do this with swimming and cycling and running as well — Dan will be able to give us something more specific here on how you could train to tackle that hill. But it's really interesting to

[07:44] hear that even among the elites, that's still a hill you've got to train for — ten K deep into the ride. It's cool to hear a quick story about the hill — last year my wife entered the race, and not only did she have the hill to tackle, she also had a snake come out in front of her. Because you're in the bush — good old Aussie race. So she's starting to think about tackling Garmin Hill, and all of a sudden a snake comes across the front of her bike. The other thing that happened last year — over the last couple of years my friends and I would meet on the Saturday

[08:15] before the race and go for a ride out to check it out. We were almost at the crest of Garmin Hill, and this poor woman behind me hit a stick — because you're going quite slow by that stage — hit a stick, feet still clipped into the pedals, went straight over the handlebars, shoulder into the bike, snapped. And I was just thinking, this woman looks like she's done a lot of training to get ready for this day, and the race is gone, 24 hours out from the start line. It's a hard sport — trust me, it's actually — we're talking

[08:47] about bikes — bikes are the hard part of it, right? Well, we saw it last year with Rihanna Cran, who was preparing for an Ironman, and then in the Legends race she went down. Well, I reckon that's the thing that catches everyone out at Noosa too — it's the uphills. You can train for the downhill, it's all about the speed coming back — we'll let you go away to the turnaround in a minute — but coming down there, I can recall countless times being on a new time-trial bike, a new disc wheel I hadn't really ridden a lot, and those bloody

[09:19] death wobbles — I used to race, sorry — we're going to talk a bit about nostalgia in this series as well, and probably the winningest male ever at Noosa is going to come on in the series too, which is great. Craig and I raced a lot down there — he probably weighed 80, 90 kilos at the time, I was racing around 65, give or take, and there was no way I could

[09:50] keep up with him down that hill. So I'd be racing for my life on a new bike I hadn't ridden all year — a lot of speed wobble going on, let's just say I was crapping myself down that hill, always. And for the average cyclist as well, for the average triathlete, there's nothing less comforting than seeing the ambulance parked at the bottom of the hill and the hay bales just in case — someone coming off is as equally disconcerting as the speed itself. Do the athletes these days — are the new time-trial bikes more stable or less stable, do you

[10:21] reckon? They're more stable, but it's how much time they spend on them — it's like Christmas for the elites. The short-course elite guys don't race time-trial bikes, so the way I get them up for it is a new bike — a company's flicking them a new bike. Absolutely, and I try to get them to focus on working it into their sponsorships, because you have to have it. And the speed these guys ride these bikes at nowadays

[10:51] is just phenomenal — the thirty-, forty-thousand-dollar bikes, going down. When we speak about the iconic parts of the course — the running up the beach, that downhill — there's not another downhill like it in the world, straight line, two K or one K down, whatever it is. Waldo one year got clocked at, I reckon, 120 kilometres an hour, and I think there was some cream involved with zip — I reckon there's some cream on that too, that's a bit I do too. But even

[11:23] cruising, you're cruising at 80K an hour. We don't want to scare people, no — but it's just to be aware, we're just talking about the course and what to be aware of. I mean, the easy thing is you tap your brakes and go slower down the hill and it's all safe, right? But it's those chasing all the speed they can get — we talked just quickly about the bikes there and that downhill, and how much slipperier the bikes are these days. I'm looking at Hayden Wilde when he won two years ago, he now holds the course record at 1:41. Most of that time — that's where they're getting

[11:54] the time back now, on the bike, right? They're riding probably well quicker than Waldo did back in those days. And you know, the bike — you can buy speed on the bike, you can buy it, you can buy it if you've got a pretty thick bank balance. You can buy the bike Hayden Wilde rides — you may not have it set up quite the same way, but you can invest in speed, and that's what these guys have, and that's what companies want, they want them on the fast bikes. And I remember before that race, Hayden and Matt were

[12:24] talking it up, saying this record's going to go, we're going to take it down. And those two have a thick rivalry that stems back ten years now, probably five, six, seven years, and it's a good one — it's another Australia–New Zealand iconic rivalry, and I'm all for it because it keeps the sponsors happy and chasing those times is excellent. And some inside information this year for everyone listening and going up to Noosa — because worlds are here in Australia, there's some chatter,

[12:54] some chatter, Liam, about internationals — he's probably been a bit light-on internationally the past few years, but because they're all going to be in town, there's a few reaching out, kind of piquing their interest. I can't confirm the Noosa race field yet, both in the men's and women's races, yes. This — again, look, we're looking forward to news here — but if you look in your rear-view for a moment at the Sydney Marathon, and I know it was a major, but to have Kipchoge and Sifan Hassan come down and the energy that generated, and

[13:26] the interest from your casual running fan — if we start to attract big internationals here, it just changes things slightly, ever so slightly. It brings a bit more energy, a few more eyeballs, and I'm all for it. So Dan, getting back to it, we're going to give people specifics around swimming in a later episode, and specifics around cycling in a later episode too — is there anything unique about the run course? Because to my eye it's just a pretty flat 10K, is there anything you see as a coach? It's four K out, six K back, so

[14:00] that's tricky. When you get to the four-K turnaround, you think, I'm on my way home, I'm on my way home, here I go — but then you go into those goddamn cul-de-sacs, running back along the same path, and then all of a sudden you come out of the cul-de-sac and there's — well, there are unique characters sitting out the front of their houses with hoses, several cans deep by the time you get there. My advice — try not to get the water on your feet.

[14:31] Try not to, as hot as you are — try to keep the shoes light. The blisters come on as soon as you're wet, and it can be a painful last couple of K, especially with little tricks like that. Where were you ten years ago, mate? I was probably coaching at the elite level. This is really exciting — look, this series, as we're going to get into more specific coaching stuff with you, is really, really exciting. Taking a step back though, you're coaching the pointy end of the sport — do you have an overarching coaching philosophy when it comes to dealing with

[15:03] these elite athletes across three disciplines? It's not as straightforward as coaching other sports where it's one thing and one thing only — what's your overarching coaching philosophy? Look, I think there are two main things for me: consistency and communication. If you can be consistent and put your plan down every week — and I mean every week, hit every session — and when I say hit it, hit it to the prescription that's given to you by your coach. I'm very fortunate that the people I'm currently coaching are very coachable.

[15:34] They still want the input, they still want to communicate about what to do and how to do it, and that to me is the type of athlete I'm looking for — someone who wants to take the input, wants to take on advice, but is also happy to lead themselves when it matters. Because at the end of the day, I'm only as good as the athletes doing what I say to do — so consistency is the biggest thing. It's an endurance sport, and for the better part it's an hour to two hours of what we do.

[16:04] So you've got to put the work in — you can't do this sport well unless you're putting in twenty-five-plus hours a week. And that relentless pursuit of excellence for us is through consistency. How long have I known you, Dan? Thirty years — how old would I have been when we first met? I was probably 15. Yeah, 14, 16, give or take. Probably rolling down Noosa Hill in a garbage bin, drunk, not racing myself. That was pretty much getting into the

[16:36] racing days — we used to have a great time at Noosa. But give us a bit of background on how — because I met you as an athlete, you were racing yourself — and then obviously we've had different paths through our time in triathlon, but how did you get to where you are now, literally coaching the number-one Australian male Olympic athlete? Where did you start? Give us the whole — well, I think — coach school, what do we call it? Give us your coaching

[17:08] background — when did you go to coach school? Well, I think I've always been a coach. I started triathlon when I was 14 — I swam in the lake at Bond Uni, which you wouldn't do now, and that was my first ever triathlon, when I was cross-training for rugby league. I was a rugby league player, and I was obsessed with training and staying fit, even at 14 — I was playing over-age at 14, playing under-19s and under-20s when I was still under 18. But I was just getting bashed,

[17:40] and I loved training and I loved running. I ran to training, I'd ride to training — my parents had split up, so my mum couldn't drive me every day, that's just the way you did it. So I was cross-training from a very early age. But I think even back then I found myself wanting to work with other people a lot, and I was never going to be an Olympic triathlete, I knew that early on, but I loved being around quality athletes. Like with Courtney, I remember waking him up in the

[18:12] mornings some days when he'd have gone out for a ride, because he needed a bit of motivation to get out of bed, and I was probably that guy helping people on their journey — I've always been that person. So I think it was a natural evolution for me to go from being an athlete myself to when my coach said, 'Hey, why don't you think about coaching?' and I guess the rest is history — 25 years ago I started, and here I am now. What were the stages, I suppose, because you don't go from

[18:43] starting to coach to suddenly being with him saying, 'Hey coach, I'll give you a crack' — what were the key moments that changed things for you, and who were some of the mentors that helped you along the way? Yeah, I think early on I started as a swimming coach — I was fascinated with swimming and the technical side of it, I coached Learn to Swim, had two businesses based around Learn to Swim and juniors, and then through cross-training, through my own triathlon experience, which was sort of unheard of at the time, we were doing running and doing

[19:15] obstacle courses — all sorts of things to try and stay fit. And then I had athletes starting to win pretty quickly, and from that I'd have some of my mates, triathletes, Levi Maxwell and others, turning up and riding on the side of the pool while my athletes were swimming, curious about what was going on. They knew I was a triathlete, knew I had a history with the sport, and one by one they got bored with swimming and got into triathlon. So it was this evolution from coaching at a school to getting kids into triathlon.

[19:47] And I still remember getting my first athlete onto a national team, which was Ryan Fischer, back in 2009 — we then went on to race the Rio Olympics. Rio Olympics, yep, that's right. And I remember him coming to me at 16 saying, 'I need you to help me get there,' and I looked at him and he couldn't keep up with our 12-year-old girls in the pool — which I'm sure he won't mind me saying — but we had an amazing career and relationship together as coach and athlete, which now stems to me going to his wedding in four weeks, which is just

[20:18] amazing. So for me, I think it's about building relationships, and that's how I've evolved as a coach. It's funny you say people were getting into triathlon as swimmers, then watching riders on the side of the pool — probably will win trainers, I'm assuming. So my way into triathlon — I had a few different mentors who got me into it, I'll always say the main one was through my school. But even then, when I used to swim down here at Miami swimming pool, Brett Sutton — he's probably, you know, coached the most

[20:48] female winners at Hawaii Ironman ever, and Olympic champions and everything else. My first exposure was him coaching his athletes on wind trainers at the pool, him skipping with half a helmet on. And I can remember, as a kid — because triathlon goes back — Noosa, let's see, Noosa is 42 years now, so 1983, Noosa started with 180 people.

[21:18] It was just this sport being slapped together, an idea — this is a little bit on from that, but these were the early days where I suppose triathlon was really just a guinea pig, because no one really knew how to put the puzzle together. There were all these eccentric characters pushing training to the limits — there are some great stories, I spent my first time overseas under Brett Sutton as well. Literally, if you want to talk some training stories — as a 17-year-old,

[21:50] I was turning up to a pool in Germany doing the swim session, getting out of the pool thinking you're going for croissants — we probably didn't drink coffee back then, but some croissants down at the bakery — and then suddenly, no, you've got to run the 16K home. Put your bag in the car and go for it, you know. So we were learning, and if you come all that time to where you are today coaching — which I'm fascinated to hear more about, coaching at the Olympic Games, and where we're going next, Los Angeles — you know, just what's changed and how much more science has

[22:20] come into it from swimming, how much more data's out there, all that's driven — we've come a long, long way. Can we unpack that now while we're here? Because I come from a football background, and I look at AFL, which I commentate now, and there's no secrets — like, while it's in finals, you'll hear the coaches say, 'well, we know what they do and they know what we do,' there's nothing hidden, everyone's seen enough of one another to know exactly what the game plan of the teams is.

[22:52] It just comes down to executing — who executes their game plan best on the day. Courtney's just spoken about the wild-west days of triathlon and people trying to figure out that jigsaw at the elite level — now, is the jigsaw complete? Is it just about — you mentioned consistency — is it just about which coaches can get their athletes to train and perform most consistently, or are there still trade secrets that you keep away from other

[23:22] elite coaches? It's constantly evolving, and it's still a young sport — we've only been in the Olympics since 2000, and we're still learning. I'm sure there are things I do that are unique to what other people are doing, but everyone has their philosophy — I think the biggest one we all abide by is consistency. It's still a two-hour event, but you've still got to train ten times the hours it takes. So for me personally, and what

[23:54] Matt and the rest of the squad do — he puts everything up on Strava, so there's no real secret there, riding and running anyway, he doesn't necessarily put the swimming up. But certainly for us, what we do isn't a secret, we have an open-door policy — if you want to come and see us train, come down. But the nuance with any kind of training is you can see the session, you can even see what the session is, but it's how you do the session that makes all the difference — exactly how you prescribe the session, and how you communicate it. But I think the trick for

[24:24] me is that I'm a face-to-face coach — even though the boys are overseas at the moment, I'll go and catch up with them later this week. It's about understanding how they're operating, how they're moving when they walk through the pool gates, what they're looking like, how they're carrying themselves, and having those conversations about how they think this morning went, how they think today's going to go, this is what we're doing. Just having that relationship where you can talk about how they're feeling — I think that's the art of coaching, and I hope it never dies.

[24:55] I know there's so much AI going on and all that sort of stuff that worries me for face-to-face coaching — it's killing off the face-to-face coach, but I'll live and die by it. Well, I think we've shown, through the running series we've done as well, there's no substitute for real-life coaching. They can get the best information for sure, however, not everyone's going to have the ability to access that, and not everyone's going to have the ability, or maybe the money, to access that, and something else is just good enough for

[25:26] them. But if you're sitting here listening and you're going to Noosa for the first time — and we're going to get the stats on this, but I'm pretty sure there's a high number of people going to Noosa for their first Olympic-distance race, maybe even their first triathlon — what would you suggest they go and do? Because they're not going to have access straight to an Olympic Games coach, though you're getting that access here on the podcast. Where would you actually send them first up? I don't think there's an area in Australia that doesn't have some connection to triathlon — whether you're out west, up north, down

[25:58] south, wherever you are, Australia knows triathlon, everyone knows Noosa. I'd argue it's probably in the top five endurance sports in Australia that people are aware of, and it brings communities together — so there's going to be someone in your area who's done the event, whether as a beginner, a ten-year veteran like you, Liam, or a three-time winner like you, Courtney, it doesn't matter — there's always going to be someone in your area who's done it. So just reach out to those, the local area, the swim club,

[26:29] they might have triathlon a little bit deep in their soul, and they'll respect the sport and what we do. There are websites, there are so many avenues to reach out to people, and they'll give you advice. The tri clubs as well — I mean, as someone who went through that exact process — my wife and I signed up to Spud Anderson's Tri Club back down in Sydney when he was there, he's up a bit further on the Central Coast these days, but he was running a tri club, and we joined his programme with the goal of racing Noosa,

[27:02] and it was fantastic. You meet like-minded people, it's a bit like run clubs but without as much dating going on — but we jumped in and had an amazing time, and that's what kept me coming back every year, because Noosa is fit-people Christmas, more so than the major marathons — I think it's smaller than the big marathons, but the vibe at Noosa Tri every year is fit-people Christmas. The energy is high, the

[27:33] endorphins you can almost reach out and touch, they're everywhere. The location helps, no denying that — Noosa's a beautiful spot, but the vibe from the moment you turn up, the expo, the fun races they have, the criterium, the 5K races on the Saturday, through the event itself on the Sunday — it cannot be beaten for atmosphere. What do the male and female elites these days think of Noosa? Because, like, going back maybe 15 years or so, it was probably the most

[28:07] important race on the calendar — not just for an Australian triathlete, but probably one of the most important races on the calendar for Australian runners, and even cyclists would come back from the Tour, and surf athletes were giving it a crack too. And I think swimming's still right up there as that standard — the best open-water swimmers still come to Noosa. But has that changed over time — is it still as important to them, does it still hold the same kudos in Australian sport that it had back then?

[28:38] I do, and you've got to understand, for the World Championship Series that I focus on, it's still going when Noosa is on — there are still a couple of Asian races at the back end of it, but it's still in everyone's conversation. The plan generally is to get through the year as well as you can so you can go to Noosa and not have to do the races at the end of the year, because for us it's all about points. And this year having Wollongong

[29:08] two weeks — everyone's going to be in peak, everyone already is, I can't wait to see the start list. Are those records going down, do you reckon? Wollongong is two weeks pre — pre-Wollongong, there's also the T100 there, so you've got a mix of the longer-course guys, and everyone doing Noosa — sorry, Wollongong. There's a big contingent of Australians selected for the Australian team for Wollongong. We're staying with this — two

[29:39] weeks pre — how long does it take to recover from a triathlon at the elite level? No, Noosa's two weeks after. Yeah, so that's what I mean — if they go down and race Wollongong, an athlete like Matt or whoever else racing Wollongong, is two weeks enough time to go again and be at the pointy end? Plenty, OK, yeah — they've got a full year of training under their belt, but more than that, they're going to get on their time-trial bikes, and, like I said earlier and you said too, Liam, it's Christmas — yeah, it's so good. I don't think there's an event

[30:11] in Australia that brings every part of our community together like this — you've got kids, Olympic swimmers, triathletes, runners, cyclists, legends coming in on a junket, every club in Australia wanting to put a tent up. It's just huge, such a community event — for me, I missed it last year, the first event I hadn't been at since '94.

[30:41] And it was the year one of my athletes finally won it. So let's talk about that — Braden Mercer, the defending men's champion, is an athlete you coach. Yes. And you weren't there — was not there. So did you expect Braden to win? No — we can tell the truth — no, no, no, I didn't, and neither did he, but he went up there with great family ties, his family felt entrenched in the Noosa Surf Club, as well as his mother

[31:13] down here on the coast. He went there, we were sort of thinking, top five would be good, and I remember watching it and just feeling this sense of, are you kidding me, I'm not there and he's going to win this? I had Matt out on the course running up and down, encouraging, and messaging me — 'he's going to bloody win this, this is amazing.' And he had two Olympians chasing him who'd just come off Paris, so it was a proper win. We spoke about it that week,

[31:44] because I've obviously had a bit to do with Braden, and I was absolutely stoked for the kid — but then when we started looking at how fast he ran, it was fully legit. And how's he been going since — give us an update, how's he been travelling this year? Because we wondered how he'd roll off that. Yeah, well, he's kicked on, which is great — he had a fantastic front end of the season. You've got to understand that Noosa, for the World Championship Series athletes, is pretty much the last race of the year, and then you go to the surf club,

[32:16] which is part of the event, we've all been there and it's wonderful — if you haven't, you should be there. Yeah, anyway — and then he kicked on and got a silver medal in a World Cup in February, carried that result on, then got his world spot ticked for under-23s early in Devonport, which was amazing, and now he's getting ready to

[32:49] race under-23s at Wollongong, then roll into Noosa as defending champion — that's the plan, and he knows he'll have some heavy hitters around him. The banter in the squad, funnily enough, isn't so much about Wollongong, it's about Noosa. Yeah, that's right, the chat is — can we confirm, Dan, will you be there this year? Without a doubt. This is — again, you mentioned we're going to wrap this up shortly, because next week the first, I guess, real coaching

[33:22] episode of this series is going to drop, when we're talking about swimming. But the event as a whole — if you get to the end of this episode and you're not excited about Noosa, or not interested in going next year — that surf club part of it, I gave this away when we did the Gold Coast run series — I think they need a beach club. They need to find a way to extend the surf club out onto the sands of Noosa's main beach so that

[33:53] that Sunday post-race event can get even bigger, because that's the problem they have now — the surf club has reached capacity. They need to find a way, Courtney, to extend the celebrations onto the sands of Noosa Main Beach. Some of your ideas go places, some of them do. I don't want to forget the women too, because the athletes we've been talking about are mostly the men — in the women's field this year, Ashleigh Gentle has won the crown, however many times now — too many to count. I think it was ten, ten last year — I've got this in front of me. The statue has to go up soon.

[34:25] 2012 she won her first, then Emma Moffatt, and she's won it every year since 2014 — there you go, so ten from ten, and the statue needs to go up for Ashleigh Gentle. Will there be internationals coming out in the women's field too? I really hope so, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't see why not — it's at Noosa, you can finish that race and then have a holiday there, sun beating down on your back. And let's not forget the different categories and everything else — one of our favourite categories,

[34:57] the Clydesdales — they call it the women's Athena division. This was a big push from Courtney and I — we want to see more of this in the marathon, we believe there's space for it in running, but Noosa does this better than anyone. Couldn't agree more. I was thinking, just the other week with the Sydney Marathon commentary and broadcast — Kurt Fearnley, Bruce McAvaney, Tamsyn Lewis, the commentary team referring to the wheelchair races, 'the wheelies' — it's not derogatory, it's a celebration of who they are as athletes.

[35:29] And that's what Noosa does so well with the Athena and Clydesdale category — they celebrate these people as athletes by giving them a category to shine. They celebrate it, and the guys and girls in this category, you want to be in it — Benny Hannon still tells me every time that he's the Noosa Clydesdale champion, and he's a man who's won NRL premierships. We might have to get some inside information from some of these Clydesdales on their tricks and tips — how they make weight, and they still do the weigh-in, coach, the woodchop ceremony, right?

[36:01] Which probably gets the biggest cheer of the lot, I reckon, at the weigh-in. This event is so good, it is fit-people Christmas, the Noosa Triathlon. It's so exciting to have you on board for this Road to Noosa Triathlon series — we're seriously excited about helping anybody doing their first one, their tenth one, or interested in the world of triathlon, because with all the running boom, this is another sport that I think is on the up, there's a real excitement around it. And with the T100

[36:32] coming to the Gold Coast next year too, there's so much around that — and what's going on in Wollongong, this is a sport Australia has such a rich history in, and with an Olympics on the horizon it's a sport we could be celebrating medals in, in Brisbane. Yep — I'm looking forward to hearing more about the specifics. Alright, there it is — the first in the Road to Noosa Triathlon series. Episode one next week: how to swim.