In the beginning, we're back. Courtney, where are you?
Where are you? We're doing this remotely today.
Where are. You it's one of those weeks.
I'm 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 on Matt Hall, a
world champion acrobatics plane, and you chucked up?
Hmm. Remember that?
Well, I went up with Matt Hall
yesterday and the Red Bull acrobatics.
Fine. Yeah.
Do you want to talk? I did.
I. Didn't I?
Didn't Chuck up. But you know what?
I also wimped out. I only went to six G's so.
OK, quick, quick catch up for anybody who doesn't know about
Matt Hall. If you've ever seen that Red
Bull playing, racing between those pylons or looped loops, if
you've been to any event on the Gold Coast or basically probably
anywhere in Australia for that matter, Matt Hall's the bloke
making it do all that incredible stuff.
And yeah, what was it probably two years ago now, Courtney, you
extended me an invitation to go and have a ride in Matt Ball, in
Matt Hall's Red Bull plane. And I'll tell you what we'll
get, we'll get the footage. I'll get you the footage of what
happened to me, because Matt did everything and it ruined me.
It ruined me for the day. Like I was gone.
I threw up in the plane. I threw up.
I threw up when I got out of the plane.
I threw up on the drive back to the studio after the plane.
I I just, I was green. It was amazing and I'm so glad I
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 till yesterday.
And, and the irony of it is I didn't actually go there with
Red Bull. I went there with Subaru and had
to go and do it. So there you go, full circle.
But I survived. You're down in Port Stephens
with doing some stuff with. Super.
I'm on a I'm on a filming trip with Subaru and we're heading
out towards Lightning Ridge. Now remember early on, like when
I flipped over to Mauritius not long ago and I said I have no
idea where Mauritius was? Well, till yesterday I had no
idea where Lightning Ridge was either.
I thought Lightning Ridge was out near Broken Hill, but
looking at a map, it's up. It's up on the Queensland border
nearly, so I may as well drive home.
Right, so you're, you're out and about, you're doing stuff with
Subaru. You're gonna be 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.
It's not last weekend's Boston Marathon.
We want to talk a little bit about those in a minute.
It is Strava. Strava and, and what they
acquired this this week, I suppose.
And that's the runner app. Now it's interesting because
there's not a lot of information that they're giving beyond that
they've just acquired it. We don't know whether they're
going to integrate it or, or how it's going to work.
But it's funny because the runner app, I probably had never
really heard of it until we started doing this podcast.
And then when we started, obviously we're doing a running
podcast and you know, we'd turn up in the running charts and
this thing called the runner app kept also showing up in there.
They've got a podcast themselves.
And I was going, hang on, I don't know about this in
Australia, but is he obviously a UK based app that does well in
Australia? And then it clicked because
those who use the AI, is it an AI training app?
And obviously they've got a great big audience who use their
app. And then that obviously
translates across to the podcast as well.
So and here they go. They've obviously been picked up
by Strava. So this is an interesting that's
just, let's just pull the thread on this for a bit and what it
might mean for 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
being simply a place where people can share their races,
their runs, what their training is, to suddenly you can now
share all that information as well as staying on that platform
for your training needs. So suddenly Strava as an
environment stretches beyond what it was now currently is to
yeah, I mean, I guess from an online digital perspective, it
almost becomes a one stop shop for running for runners and and
that sort. Of well, I wonder, yeah.
I mean, like I said, we don't know exactly where it's gonna
be. Will they keep, you know, they
may acquire it and then just keep it separate to the app and
just profit off the fact that it's a training base.
I mean, you'd hope they don't. I would love to see it
integrated. I read an interesting thing
around, you know, obviously Strava, we've talked a lot about
they have their free platform and then obviously they're paid,
paid tiers. Interestingly, and I'm assuming
I'm reading at the moment it's going to be U.S. dollars, but
$80.00 a year for the premium unlocks of premium features on
Strava Runner is a paid app and the subscription costs 120 per
year. So the Runner app's actually
more expensive than a Strava premium service at the moment,
which then makes me think, you know, how do they integrate that
in? Do you get a discount?
And, you know, so many questions, but I think this is a
great thing for running and, and those who, like we always say,
having a coach and having someone to individualise
everything's, you know #1 but you know, if they can integrate
this into Strava in 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 this, acquiring, the other thing that
I I find interesting is they say, I mean according to
Strava's year and sport data, running is the fastest growing
sport globally. Of course it this their data is
going to support their business model.
I get that. But the next line on the press
release is the one that grabs me because it says Gen Z in
particular returning to running to create community and
connection, which has then 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
training plans. So that to me, I think you then
start to see you get a little bit of an insight about how
Strava will utilise what runner does.
But also, I think you then right now in my mind, my mind
immediately goes Strava and Runner will be sitting down with
every major marathon, with every major running event slash
adventure race of note and going, Hey, sit down with us,
advertise with us. We can we can offer your
potential participants not only training programmes, but a
community to be a part of online in the lead up to this event.
Yep. Well, it's definitely, you know,
you talk about domination, you know, there's a lot of different
apps out there. There's a lot of different
training programmes, online coaches and everything else
we're seeing too now. I suppose with the the Strava
platform, it really puts this on a pedestal, you know, will they
rebrand it? Will will Runner as an app
disappear and just be integrated?
These are all the questions I've got.
Yeah, just quickly I do want to talk a little bit elite running
because for those not obsessed with following marathons around
the world, there is has been a bit of news last week and we had
the Boston Marathon, which is one of the real storied events
on the the running calendar. John career, I'm not sure if I'm
saying his surname correctly. John Courier from Kenya took out
the men's race in 2/04/45. And the women's race was won by
Sharon Lake Eddy in 2/17/22, which I think was a women's
record for Sharon. But just going back to John, the
men's race winner, I'm not sure if you've seen it, Courtney,
there's a, there's a real going round at the very beginning of
the race. He gets flattened.
He gets absolutely smashed, basically completely trampled
through the elite in the elite pack and spat out the back.
So you see the elite pack take off and then you see John pick
himself up off the deck and then have to run and catch up.
And he goes on to win it in an incredible time.
I just, I loved it because I was like, what an awesome metaphor
for running in general. Well, I no, I didn't, I didn't
see that one, Liam. But I mean, that just shows you
like if there anyone who's racing, I mean, you don't want
you to fall over at the beginning.
But I think it's doesn't matter what level you're running,
whether it's the lead or whether you're just out there.
I mean, go, if the start of the race doesn't go to plan, if
you're not feeling great at the start of the race, all of those
things in distance running, not just marathoning, but any of
these distances, you know, there's time to come back.
You can relax, you can regroup, you go through the ups and downs
and you know even the best look like they go go through that and
can come back. Shout out to Aussie Paddy Tin
and who ran the second fastest Boston Marathon time by an
Australian ever. He ran a 2/08/08.
He had a stint at the front of the lead pack but he ended up
finishing 11th. Still an epic run by Paddy Tin.
And but I wanna talk about as we record this, the London Marathon
is happening on Sunday, tomorrow if you're listening to this 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 because of the Alex Yee
storyline heading into this. This is, 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. I think can he ran him down
basically in the in the finishing shoot.
It was one of the moments of the Olympic Games and he is making
his marathon debut tomorrow in the marathon.
I've got some comments that I want some quotes in an interview
that he's done that I want to share with you, Courtney.
But first up, how do you feel about because he's targeting an
incredible time to, I think he's targeting somewhere between 2:06
and 2010. So it's right up the pointy end.
But I mean, are you interested to see how he goes?
Yeah. I mean, I like if you use Boston
as the example, I probably wasn't really across it.
I mean, I kind of looked at a bit of the results at the end of
it. But I am interested in London
for this story. And from what I've kind of heard
on the Grapevine as well, there's another and I've
forgotten his name, but the other young Brit who Alex raced
against as a junior and they were very similar.
He's racing as he's head kind of like I think the headlining kind
of guy as well. And you know, there's a race
within that itself. But the fact he's actually going
to go out by the sounds of it and really attack a 205206 and
that's what he's training is kind of, you know, pointing
towards, I think it's super exciting.
Look, even if he gets out and blows up and he gives it a
crack, everyone's going to, well, most people are going to
be interested who follow triathlon at least to see how he
goes. I know Alistair Brownlee and a
couple, I think Johnny Brownlee might have did it as well.
But definitely even some of the Spanish guys would rock over to
the US and they'd done a couple of the big track races in the US
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, it's super exciting mate, super exciting.
I just want to share he's done this interview and just I'm
going to read through some quotes and I want to pick your
brain because I think it's interesting seeing his mentality
heading into this. I think he's done this interview
with the Guardian. Apologies if I get it wrong, but
source? Honestly, it's an excitement
about the unknown. As elite athletes, we're used to
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 Iron Man. You've never straight up race an
Iron Man. Can you, can you talk us to a
little bit about the pain difference between when you are
redlining during an an Olympic distance versus what Alex might
experience in the London Marrow? Yeah, I think, I mean, at least
in the Olympic distance, we're talking, right?
You're at that red line, but you're only there on the run for
10K. So yes, you've had the bike
before it. Yes, you've been taxed in the
swim. But yeah, actual muscles are
only running. You're running muscles are only
running for that 10K. So you don't generally get that
breakdown in those single muscles as much as what you know
Alex will go and face in a marathon.
The flip side is if you're in longer course triathlon, yes,
like I mean, in the Iron Man, you're running a marathon, but
you're nowhere near the speed of being at red line.
So the breakdown again, it's a it's a different, it's a
different, I suppose, feeling and it's a different attribute.
You'll get what your face or what Alex is going to face in a
marathon is simply, you know, he's got the fitness.
I mean he's out on bikes riding five hours every week.
I heard he's still swimming 5 sessions a week when he goes
into this race. So he hasn't lost any of that
base. If anything, he's probably got,
he's going to go into that with more aerobic pace than any
runner there. But what he hasn't faced and
what he probably hasn't even maybe done the load of running
that some of the others will do is how do you just tax that
muscle for just over 2 hours and how does that breakdown?
And then that's going to be the big question.
You know, once he gets to that, I've got no doubt, you know, he
should be fine to get through, you know, 20-30 K.
It's then how do you face that last 10K And like, you know, the
marathon as I know have been at the top end from here from
Australia, they all say the same thing.
You know, it comes down like a tonne of bricks and it's all it
all matters in that last 10K. Well, and then he, he went on to
say in this interview, he's talked about he's run parts of
the London course and he's gone out and he's run his goal race
pace for that 30 KS. 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 a bit of shoe
chat and gear chat to the end of the pod, but I want to bring it
in quickly here before I get to Alex's quote, the Boston
Marathon. I just want to run people
through what was on the the feet of the podium finishes.
So in the in the men's race, John Career, the Kenyan who won
it was running Meta speeds, ASICS meta speeds, the silver
and the bronze were both wearing Adidas Adios Pro, the Evo Twos.
Then in the women's race was really interesting because
Sharon Laketi, the winner was wearing Under Armour Velocity
Elite 3, so she was wearing Under Armour shoes.
Second was wearing on Cloud Boom Strike LS and the third place
was wearing Nike Alpha Flies. But it's a real mix of shoes on
the podium in Boston. Alex tomorrow in the London
event has said keep an eye on what I'm wearing on my feet in
the marathon As I've been working very closely with New
Balance on a new shoe. I've been involved in the little
with the development and testing and it makes me feel like I'm in
the best shoe for the marathon. So I am as interested in what
Alex is wearing on his feet in the race as I am in on his time.
I'm I cannot wait to see what shoes he's wearing.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, everyone's looking at shoes at the moment.
They so many companies are dropping them so much faster,
these super shoes at the moment and they keep coming.
It makes me think I just going off on a tangent.
New shoes at the moment, Jordan. So night Jordan just did a great
YouTube clip of the trial of Luca.
I think, I think the basketball's name is hopefully
I've got that right, but literally he's just got a new
shoe and they did a 7 minute. Luca Doncic, yes.
Done a 7 minute video about he's the bad guy basketball, but the
jury kind of can't get over his shoes and that his shoes
overcome his Vadnais 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 said, you just mentioned I want to know
what shoes they're wearing. We've often said on the podcast
that we don't know necessarily who is winning the races, but
you can all because this, you know, maybe we don't recognise
the names as much unless you're like fully in the elite side of
marathoning. But what we all do, no matter if
you're a beginner or you're in the intermediate or like us
talking about it, everyone wants to know what shoes they're
wearing. So 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, I mean maybe may, you
know, we saw Noah Lyles after he won the 100 metres in in Paris
last year. He said he wants a shoe and he
doesn't want a track shoe. He wants a trainer, a Jordan
style. He wants a name branded trainer.
Maybe tomorrow we see Alex Yee running in the Alex Yee model of
New Balance. Who knows?
We'll we'll keep an eye on that, but let's move on because we
Speaking of equipment, Speaking of gear, I don't know how to
describe this best, but I want to share a message with people
that we got on the the show page Claudio.
Claudio has messaged the podcast and said hello, Courtney and
Liam. My name is Claudio or Claudio.
I live in Madrid. Shout out to our Spanish
listeners, Claudio has said. I started listening to the
podcast when it appeared in my feed after a family trip to
Australia. Thank you to Spotify, thank you
to Apple Podcast for pushing out our podcast to international
business when they come to town, Claudio said.
I have listened all the episodes already and right now I'm
tapering for my first marathon ever in Madrid through the
course. Tough course, hopefully goes
well. Awesome Claudio, this is great
news I'm excited to see. 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
Ivan Rainier or Rana, an old school Spanish athlete who
competed against our 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
photo gets put up of you in your Dick stickers and a tight bond
looking singlet. And what I mean, talk us through
the look and what do you remember this race?
Do you remember Ivan? Tell us about this picture.
Oh. My I, I saw Ivan actually tagged
me on this. So I saw it myself and I posted
it. And I don't often post old
things that have happened in the past, but so this was back in
2000 and Ivan was pretty much around World juniors was, you
know, my main competitor, I suppose, when I was racing at
that time. And we we made the we made the
jump, I suppose, into the senior ranks pretty quick.
So this was a World Cup at the time on both probably only 1920
years of our of age. But I think what everyone's
looking at is what we're wear, what we're wearing, right?
So yes, we did race in Dick Toks.
That's number one #2 though, and why I was more and more
interested in the thing. And thanks, Claudio, for saying,
Courtney, you won the race, so don't let Liam embarrass you.
So I can't remember this race. I do know it was in a place
called Ishigaki. And I did win a lot in.
I had a good run of World Cups down in Ishigaki.
So tangent, Ishigaki, for those who don't know.
You think Ishigaki's an island in Japan?
Most people know Okinawa. So right down in the South, like
right in the southern islands of Japan.
Now Ishigaki is right over towards TA, Taiwan.
It's miles away from Japan, but still in Japan.
So it's like a tropical island that we'd go once a year to go
and racing. What I mean here though is a
pair of speed dealer, Oakley, It's just like you, 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 5 panel hats, 5 panel hats, pair of speed
dealers. OK, maybe not the Dick stickers,
but you know, singlets nearly shirts out.
This is this is vintage. But they were like they say hey,
everything vintage comes back round and this is in fashion
right now. But we'll let I'll put the
picture up and we'll let everyone decide.
Yeah, well, just quickly. So what year was this?
This would have been 2000 so. Yeah.
OK. So by that metric, what we need
to do, what the podcast needs to do in the beginning, we need to
go and check out what you were wearing.
We need to go into your archives and figure out what you're
rolling in sort of 2005 because that's what's gonna come.
That's what's gonna be hot again next.
That's what in the beginning, if we start doing some merch from
the podcast Courtney, it needs to be whatever you were racing
in in about 2005. Alright, I've got some homework
then. Triathlon definitely are always
what would you say? Never been shy of lycra, have
they? And this is this is pre pre full
lycra days. This is where we're wearing
Pretty Little. I'll tell you what, when you
crashed you knew it. He had skin coming off
everywhere. Ohh.
Can can I ask then, before we move on from this, do you what's
the worst crash you've ever had? Like what's the most in terms of
bark off the legs and the arms? What was the worst one you ever
had? The.
Worst one, actually, the worst crash I ever had was probably my
first crash and I remember it plain as day coming.
And those who are on the Gold Coast and right around the Gold
Coast will know the first corner on Springbrook after the water
tower. And it's literally, it's a
sweeping left hander. I'd never come down a mountain
in my life. I reckon I would have been
probably 1415 riding in a pair of trackies of all things.
And I came around that first sweeper and just literally laid
the bike down straight across the gravel, sorry, straight
across the bitumen, straight across the gravel into the
grass. And I read that that's how you
learn. I mean, crashes really.
In the end, you learn from it. OK, can't go that far next time.
And, and here you go. But I reckon I did another
thousand repeats up Springbrook over my lifetime and that was
the only crash I had on that one.
All right, quickly before we move on to loose ends and I've
actually got a first ever unboxing to do here on in the in
the beginning podcast. Do we need to fix the store
gift? Oh.
Look, I'm gonna be transparent. I did not watch the store gift,
but I've seen the aftermath of it.
I OK, I'm gonna tell a story first before we get into this.
I had a masua back in. I had a masua who, I won't say
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 the
surface, get a rub off him. Now he coached, he was A and he
was the coach of the VFL boundary umpires.
So he's pretty handy runner himself was a good coach.
He also used to get those boundary umpires ready for the
store gift. Not in the hundreds, but it's a
similar situation in the mile and the 3000.
Now they used to. Now this is where I know it's
like a bit rotted. They used to, some of those
runners would nearly fox or 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 lying down on them on that
day. It was a it was a scheme, it was
a scam. Now, I don't know if it still is
right now, I don't know that information, but what can I can
tell you is where there's money and where there's bedding,
there's always going to be some funny business.
So if and if you're like one of those, if you're like Courtney
and you actually didn't, you're not across the what happened at
stall over the Easter long weekend.
I love the the heritage. I love the nostalgia of stall.
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 I love it.
I do love the all the storytelling around this event,
but everything needs to progress, everything needs to
move forward. And if we don't adapt, things
die. And I wonder whether what we
just witnessed this year with the race is the sign that the
stall gift needs to adapt. And I'm talking about the fact
that the most exciting sprinters that we've had in the history of
Aussie sprinting for who knows, maybe ever in the case of Gout
Gout, but certainly for a very long time with Gout Gout and
Lockheed Kennedy. This is a 20 year old and a 17
year old who are both if running sub 10, touching the 10 sub ten
with wind assist. Whatever.
The point is, we're excited about them and we know their
name. And neither of them make the
men's final Shout out to Bree Masters near Rizzo.
Who, or might be the other way around, who took out the women's
event off scratch? I loved it.
Again, we've talked about Brie and what a star she is of women
sprinting at the moment. To do it off scratch.
You saw how much it meant to. I love 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
handicap of scratch and he didn't make it through.
I wonder whether stall and the people that run it and organise
it need to step back and go. Do we need to make some changes
here? Well, after listening to
everything you just said, I would go, well, that would make
sense. But I mean, this is an event
that's been running for a long time and the nature of
handicapping is, hey, should gout gout win?
We everyone wanted to see the race and see the handicap and
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
said. There's there's there's other
athletes there who are turning up and store gifts just as
important to them. The public want to see one thing
the store gifts been going a long time and I'm sure this has
happened over and over again. And how?
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 this?
That's my question. It's a good point.
Anyway.
Look, hey, it's the first time. I think the store gift has
probably made as much noise since.
Have you seen that clip that always does the rounds at this
time every year where Kathy Freeman, I think she's starting
off like a 56 metre handicap and she runs down the 400.
It's an awesome, awesome clip. Yeah, I mean, the one thing we
can all agree on, you know, there's we talked about the
Grand Slam track and different ways of running track.
Like this is a unique Australian.
I mean, there's obviously handicaps all around the world,
but still has a lot of history. Everyone knows that TV supports
it, the public support it. And, you know, maybe there's a
little bit of a hiccup this year with some of the big stars, but
it's not going to, you know, it's gonna go on, I reckon, for
years and years. And with athletics growing like
it is, too, it's gonna grow with it.
So it's only a good thing. Alright, let's let's RIP into
some loose ends from last week. Courtney, get us into it.
Yeah, so I've got on mate. We're getting called hard and
this has happened a few times. I've, I've ignored it up to now,
but Zucconi we obviously keep saying very strongly, like an
Australian accent. Zucconi sock on E.
Is that how you pronounce it? Sock on E look sock on.
EI think we should just stick with how we pronounce it and
everyone, if, you know, like it, I've called it that for 20
years. Make your brand's name easier to
pronounce if you've got an issue with it.
But yeah, so so John boy 76, he was only just one of many coming
in. Thanks mate.
We, we do appreciate everyone writing and the messages and
everything and we acknowledge, yes, we're probably saying it
wrong, but my mind just goes straight to Ciccone every time.
So but mate, the shoes at the moment, like we said last week
are going can. I can, I can I jump in quickly
with a story about the great Mark guy.
This is the first time MG has and may ever.
It may be the last time MG the wild Panther, the Penrith legend
gets mentioned on a running podcast.
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 said, but did you know what I mean?
And I said, yeah, he said, then what's the problem?
And when we say Sorconi, you know what we mean.
Too too true Liam, too true. Now Jordan Mcgow has written in
Hey guys, listen to this weekend's app as I typed this,
talking around the pacing at Canberra.
So 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 failed. Their goal is pretty poor,
especially when often these are free entries as volunteers.
Now, I'm not, I don't completely agree with that because look,
yes, they're volunteering. It's not about the free entry.
They're actually doing a service to everyone.
So let's not jump on our paces. We appreciate our paces.
Just my thoughts. It's good to be a little head
like 30 to 60 seconds buffer, but that's far.
But you know, 10 minutes is far too quick and sort of shame they
missed their goals. I had a few people ride in like
this and talk about a few Pacers who actually said to me as well
that when they finish, they've heard about Pacers slowing up
like right before the finish line.
No go either. If you're gonna run in, run in.
But Pacers should. You know, there's enough
technology now that Pacers should be on, on, on point.
But you know what? I've never paced.
I'm assuming you've never paced, Liam.
So we're just talking through stuff we don't know.
Let's jump straight into Wade from the Sunny Coast here.
Wade's sent us a message saying playing catch up on the potty
while painting the house. You were talking about how
Powerade uses high fructose corn syrup versus Gatorade, but
Powerade uses succross in a strategies.
I feel like we're heading down a science tunnel here.
Courtney, I hope you're paying attention.
So Powerade uses high fructose corn syrup versus Gatorade, but
Powerade it 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 USA who
grow 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 fella. Shout out Wade.
That's a good This is good insight from Wade.
Thank you. Wade, does that make sense to
you? It does make sense and I'm going
to put my hand up that I obviously when I went to look at
those or someone actually think wrote it, just send 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 the bottle or the cans and look
for yourself. Obviously different ingredients
in different countries, but yes, thanks Wade for sending that one
in and and setting us straight. Now, we've talked about the
robot half marathon in the past. I don't want to spend too much
time on it, Liam, but just touching on it, that happened
over in, where was it China, they had the race half marathon,
the robot champion, 2 hours 40. He's not.
They're not beating us just yet. So there you go, we'll put the
reel up and show everyone what happened.
But I'm glad to see they. Lift your game, robots, you got
a long way to go. That they do now mate.
I want to hear what's going on with you.
What's how's your running week been?
So quick catch up and if you're playing along with the Wednesday
EPS where we're preparing for Gold Coast Marathon, lace up
running with Benita Willis at the helm.
At the moment I feel like I'm wasting Benita's time because we
are two weeks into this marathon prep and I'm not running because
I've gone down with a Soleus strain after week 1.
Basically the long and the short of it is I didn't recover well
from Konani and I've tried to jump back into a week of, of, of
kilometres that my calves weren't ready for and I'm paying
the price now. So I am, I'm sort of playing,
I'm literally playing it day by day at the moment.
I'm talking to Benita regularly, I'm talking to my physio.
I'm trying to. And look, the reality is, and
I'll talk more about this on next Wednesdays because I'm
sitting down with Benita and Bronte again.
But the reality is I am having to re probably reassess the
marathon goal because I could persist and naively train for
this, but I just don't think I'm already, I'm down to A10 week
prep instead of a 12 week prep and I'm recovering from an
injury and I'm not up to like 100% running capacity.
And it's just going to be probably beyond me.
That being said, I'm not making any decisions.
I'm going to wait for Benita to instruct me on this.
But yeah, it's, it's been really frustrating and disappointing
because, I mean, I've start, I'm on a bloody running podcast and
I can't, I can't get myself running right at the moment.
It's, it really is frustrating and I just, I just want to be
running. I really want to be invested
and, and, and into this training programme 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.
And all these are lessons that people out there are probably
banging their head against their their phone or their radio.
What however, they're listening to this because they're going
through similar stuff or they've been through similar stuff.
So essentially, right now, my running is day to day.
It is limited. And I'm hoping that I'll, I'll
be able to give people an idea of what my new marathon goal is
soon. But for now I'm I'm a day to day
case. I, I wouldn't, it sounds, yeah.
I mean, I can tell you motivations right down, but I, I
was out before you. So there's, I think the main
thing is we will, we will continue to move forward because
there will be people, there will be other runners in the same
situation and there will be other runners who will face the
same situation as they get closer to the marathon.
So everything that you'll be talking about with Benita, we're
still going to be learning along the way.
And for those who are listening, you know, 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 for
everyone out of Benita as well. So we want to make sure that
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
of information for you. But I think it is key that, you
know, everyone at some point in that marathon is gonna have to
go through some, you know, gonna go through a little niggle or go
through something that's gonna face them.
And motivation, mate, is the hardest thing to get around.
So, you know, it's not lost views.
Get back. You've done plenty of running
and we're gonna keep going. Absolutely.
And in fact, next this next, the episode that's gonna drop on
Wednesday, we've had a lot of people ask about strength
training specifically. And you can bet your ass that
that's going to be a big part of my conversation with Benita
about strength training and cross training as part of a
marathon programme. When you might be limited on
running, A, because of injury or B, because of time or B, you
know, because of weather, for whatever reason, you might be
limited on your running. There are, you know, things you
can still be doing, and we'll be hitting those with Bonita on
Wednesdays at a. 100 percent, 100% today.
I'll tell a bit of a running story and when we talk about
races and we said each week we're going to try and catch up
on some local races. This is one that goes back.
It's a bit of a vintage race, but I was out at the Stockton
Sand Dunes today. I don't know if you know
Stockton Sand Dunes, it's kind of down in Newcastle once you're
up on the top of them. I was on a quad bike doing doing
a some filming up there and crazy enough I got to the same
spot where we started the tour and it's where I did A10
kilometre soft sand race. Or this would be going back well
before Covad, but it was a 10K soft sand race called Red Bull
June Dusters in the Stockton Sand dunes.
And what I remember about it. So like when you talk about
unique races and what you go through, think of those who've
seen Dakar Rally and the motorbikes and the cars in the
sand dunes at Dhaka. In this run race, they'd put
these high flags at the top of each June and you literally ran
off up the sand. And then you have to make a
decision when you got to the sand June, do you go straight up
the guts in the soft sand up the steep face, or do you run around
and kind of use the angles of the ridgeline a little bit
better to get to that, to those through those flags.
When you got to those flags, it was only then you saw the next
part of the course because obviously there's big valleys
between the sand dunes. So then you went to the next set
of flags, did the same thing, the next set of flags and the
next set of flags. It was probably one of the
hardest run races I did. And talking about shoes, it's
the only time I've ever worn those Vibrams, those, what are
they called, barefoot running shoes and they didn't go too bad
and I didn't burn my feet. So everything may go, but that's
where I am at the moment. So not much running news, but I
sitting down around the Newcastle area at the moment
doing some stuff. That race sounds horrible that I
have 0 interest in doing that race.
No, no thank you. Feel free to not invite me ever
to Red Bull Sand dune Busters or the hell on earth as that race
sounds like it was called Righto.
Let's keep rattling through. We'll we've talked a little bit
about the shoes everybody's going to be running in in the
marathons last weekend in Boston and tomorrow in London.
So we might move on from a bit of gear chat today on this app.
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
audience, it allows us to continue to grow.
So if you haven't already subscribed, please do.
If you've got friends that are running, share it with them and
tell them to get involved and flick us any questions they've
got. These questions come through
anonymously and we more than happy to keep you Anonymous if
you would like. Anonymous has says firstly,
awesome podcast. Thanks so much :) emoji.
I've got a moral dilemma type situation when I ran a Mila at
around a hunter and a Mila, If you're not familiar with the
lingo, A Mila means 160 kilometre race, 100 mile race.
So Anonymous has run a Mila and this person has said at around
120 kilometres in, there was another runner with a pacer.
We got to a section where you had to go through a very
technical section of Bush. It was only around 1 kilometre,
yet 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.
Anyhoo, a person was waiting for the other runner with their
pacer and took them through a shortcut saying you don't have
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 dib a dobber anonymous has said that
they did, by the way, knowing that they did the 464 kilometres
and context here was that they were at the back of the pack.
So essentially, to summarise, someone they were running in
this 100 mile with has has cut some of the section to make it
easier for themselves. Courtney thoughts.
Well, my first thought is you never cut the course.
That's cheating. This is as simple as that.
I don't have too much to say on it.
It's as simple as that. Now, the dobbing element of it
is the interesting part. So oh man, I don't even know.
I'm going to have to sit on the fence on this one.
I I just say you don't cut a course like you're really only
cheating yourself in that case. Now, if the course is backed up
and this is 100 and what did she it wasn't a mile or 120 K rate
or it was 100 mile. I mean, you couldn't be moving
that quick at the same time. So if for someone to get off
course knowingly and just miss a section that's just not on mate,
not on. I'm I'm, I'm with you,
anonymous. Totally agree.
My footy, we had a footy coach way back in the day who used to
when we do running sessions, used to, you know, he'd love
shouting out, you know, you're only cheating yourselves as
though when we were doing running sessions, if you were
pulling up short or, you know, basically trying to instil some
level of responsibility on us as individuals about what we were
running and, and and it it annoyingly, it's always stuck
with me that, you know, we take the piss a little bit, but
you're only cheating yourself. And the reality is that person
who's cut the corner on the 100 mile lives with that.
Now they know that they cut a kilometre off the course.
They're the ones when they put their head down at the end of
the night, they know 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
beat that person. You entered the race because you
wanted to see if you could complete 100 mile race, which
you have. If anything, that somebody on
your level of running needed to cut the course and cheat to get
through it. I mean if you want to be not
petty about it, but it should give you extra an extra boost
that they weren't capable of what you were.
Good, well said Liam. Mate, I love that that last bit
of it, you know, 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, so this is the one I was talking about that I would one
of the few left races I want to do in Australia or haven't got
to yet. You got three mountains, super
technical and finishes with A5 Ki think you drop 1000 metres in
5K to finish it. So you thought your legs hurt
after Kanani? This is, and it's a technical
descent as well. So yeah, pretty much.
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 4K you descend
over 1000 metres, so even worse Cliff, a Cliff face at some
points. To give you an idea, it's
roughly 19 K. The guy who did it last year won
in just over 2 hours, so 19 K to it.
Yeah. So she's tough.
Since Liam is the mountain runner now, I reckon you guys
need to make your way back down to Tassie and give give what is
it, 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 Kanani's done to my calves.
So no, I don't think I need to find something that's even more
taxing on my legs just right now.
Unless I get my my legs and calves bulletproof with a better
strength training programme, in which case, why not?
I'd like, hey, I'm all for trying stuff.
And if it's a race that Courtney you've got on your radar, let's
go do it. Yeah, Yeah.
Well mate, I've I've got an entry that I've had for three or
two or three years now and the kind organisers down there keep
rolling it over for me so I can get down there and, and I will
one year, I still promise it's one race that I want to do in
Australia that I haven't yet. So I will see you down there at
some stage. Lincoln.
So thanks for that. Kate Jones.
Hold on, hold on, I. Can't finish yet?
Hold on because we have to do we have to make history for the
podcast today, Courtney, because for the first time we are going
to be doing an unboxing. Now this, I know this was a
trend about six years ago, but we are bringing it back and we
have a package to open courtesy of.
I would go as far as to put him if he's not on the, if he's not
the number one, he's certainly on the leaderboard, on the
Strava leaderboard of #1 fans of this podcast, Ryan Kelso, this
is the organiser of the Armadale Running Festival, which he's
trying to recruit us to be ambassadors for, for next year.
And he has 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 and. With my name on it.
Beautiful. What's on the back?
With more than just your name on it, Courtney.
Now This is why I'm going to do it.
Wheel of Fortune style. I am going to, and we'll have to
turn this into all videos so people can see what we're
talking about. But as I spin this, I want you
to describe what you're looking at, OK?
Because as I rotate it for the camera.
Oh, I think someones been, I think Ryan's been playing on AI.
Hey, look at that. That is Matt.
That is gold. That is gold.
Ryan has taken what looks to be a steel shot of the podcast,
chucked it into one of those AI animator things.
It has spat out logo of the two of us 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 ridiculously, this is 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
lumberjack. You, it's giving you the
thickest, richest. I don't know if anybody out
there is old enough to remember Home Improvement, the the Tim
Allen sitcom from the 90s. You look like Al Boland, 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.
But I, on the other hand, look worse.
I I look like a I I look like a middle aged unemployed man who
has a very quickly receding hairline.
Ohh mate it's it's gold. I love, I love this.
Thanks Ryan mate, that is a lot of works gone into.
That these are amazing, Ryan. Seriously, thank you.
Mate, mate, thank you, thank you.
And you are, you are. I agree with Liam, you
definitely, you've been there from the beginning, mate.
And we, we appreciate everyone's support and you've been there
right from the beginning. So thank you.
Now we're gonna let me do this one, Courtney, please, because
Katie Jones has sent this into the show.
And and I think this beautifully.
You'll never understand what this is like.
This is very much the every person runners mentality.
I want them to remember this because most of them will never
win the race. But all of us are capable of
this. This is Kate Jones to share
this. It's come through from
Instagram. Nellie Oheha 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
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. And we'll see you on Wednesday
for the Marathon specific app.