In the Beginning runs the Gold Coast.
These are the special Gold Coast Marathon focused editions of In
the Beginning podcast. We couldn't be more excited to
be a part of this. Also, we need to shout out, as
we will in every one of these episodes, lace up running.
That is the coaching programme that we are jumping into to get
us through. And we are joined by the
founder, the coach, the guru as she will be known, Benita
Willis. Benita, thank you for coming
back. Thanks, Liam.
Yeah, pumped to be here. Well, we need to say first of
all, not only thank you for being here, thank you for being
prepared to participate in this because this is an experiment of
sorts, not only for the podcast, but for me in particular as a
runner. I don't know how this is going
to go, but thank you for being prepared to take the risk on a
40 year old who's got some history of some calf problems
and who is setting himself a very ambitious goal for the Gold
Coast Marathon. Courtney, can we just set up
where you are on all this? Yeah, well, I was meant to be
involved in this. I mean, that's half the thing.
I was so excited to get out and run Gold Coast.
And then silly old me, I've actually got a bit of a bone,
bone reaction at the moment. So it's taking me out of
running. So then I think what the great
opportunity that's happened because like most people who
listen to us aren't necessary. You're elite runners.
I would say 90 percent, 95% of people that listen to us are not
elite runners exactly. So some of the feedback was
actually like, well, if you're aiming for a three hour run, I
was aiming, you know, maybe to go a lot quicker or a bit
quicker than that. What about everyone else?
Yeah, we've solved that. We have solved that problem.
There is a young woman by the name of Bronte Langbrooke.
If you're on the Gold Coast and you listen to CFM in the
morning, you'll know Bronte well.
She is a star and she's also a run lover.
Now she's 12 months into a running journey.
She is going to be our and she has signed up for the Gold Coast
Marathon. She's our first time runner,
first time marathon runner and Benita, you are taking her under
your wing for this race as well. And we are going to be able to
give people that taste of or that that journey, follow that
journey of the first time marathon runner. 100%, I think
we're going to find that will be for me actually.
That's super interesting. So there's been so many
questions we've asked about what's the right pace, how much
you do. If you haven't run anyone out
there listening, follow along because we're going to talk
about it all in this lead. And and if if you're listening
and you have got your own marathon plan mapped out,
wherever you're doing it through, follow along because we
are going to go through the ups and downs of this 13 week
programme. As it is.
We've got a 12 week marathon programme.
But Benita, today we are essentially 13 weeks out.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
So let's start. Do I have told you that I'm
going to try for a sub three hour marathon?
Coach Benita, do you think knowing I've sent all my
information to you, where I'm at at the moment, my mileage, PBS,
all the rest of it, do you think I can achieve it?
Yeah. So looking at all your
information and knowing from experience from people that I've
had that have run similar times to you before, I think it's
gonna be incredibly tough. There's nothing like starting
with absolute honesty. This is Liam.
This is. Great, this is so good.
But it's it's not unachievable, but it's one of those things
that so a sub three hour marathon is I I've had coached
guys and girls before that have tried for years to run a sub
three hour marathon with a similar PB to you.
Mm hmm. And once they've done it once,
they seem to be always running in the two 50s.
And it's just that it's in a, it's a mental and emotional sort
of barrier as well. But also, you know, you're,
you're 321, which you've done. Was that your And that was your
first marathon? No, I I've done, I've done
probably that. I think that might have been my
third. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's, it's an incredibly good run 321, right.
So when you when, but when you go from, I think that was like
446 pace or something down to 415 pace, that's a big jump.
And just from the the experience that I've had with coaching
people, it's sometimes it's quite hard.
But one of the things that we can do is like try that pace.
So I always say to people, have a look at your goal pace and we
do these specific marathon sessions, which I'll set for you
and we can, we can have a look in the first few weeks and see
how the pace feels. And, you know, if you can't do
it in training and some of the training runs that are sort of,
you know, only 88 KS or six KS at that pace, you can't, you
won't be able to do it for a marathon in 12 weeks.
OK, so this is this is already where I've got a question
because for people listening, there will be people like me,
delusional people like me who have set themselves a time goal
for the Gold Coast Marathon and they have structured a 12 week
plan. Some of these people, unlike me,
who has a professional like you to speak to in person, they will
have jumped on to a an online programme, punched in a goal
time. And this AI or whatever it is,
will have spat out this programme for them.
And they will be following this unable to actually track or or
ask questions or reassess because they're not keeping up
with the the pacing. They won't be able to actually
ask questions because it's something that's just been spat
out online. So if you're, how do I, you've
told me it's going to be incredibly tough, but we're
going to try some things to see if I need to adjust it.
What sort of time frame should people be reassessing their time
goals at the beginning of a a marathon block?
Yeah, that's a good question. I really think in the first sort
of 3234 weeks, because I, I think to, it's really
disheartening to go through a marathon block and not be able
to hit the paces that even if it's something that's AI
generated, not being able to hit paces that, that it's said
because then you sort of don't feel like you're accomplishing
anything. And but when I say incredibly
tough, like I, I don't think it's unachievable.
It just might take a few marathons or it might take some
more training, some speed. So for you to get faster at say
the half marathon and 10K before you're gonna hit that hit that
some 3 hour marathon. OK, so I always look at so so
for your background, so you've done a 128 half, yes.
You know, in an ideal world, you'd want to be running one
23124 for 1/2 and, and have that sort of speed behind you.
So when you get into 415 pace, that feels slow.
And so that's that's always my analogy.
But we're coming into this programme 13 weeks to go and
we're not gonna be doing that sort of speed work because we're
straight into the marathon block.
Yeah. So you wanna be, you know, you
wanna be pumped about training. You wanna be excited to, to get
to the, to the race and, and, and you wanna be having a goal
that's achievable. So it's one of those things that
people come to me all the time with.
I wanna, I wanna run this time, you know, and, and I, I'm always
realistic with people because you have to be.
But also, I'm realistic to say that a running journey might be
two, 3-4 years to get to this brilliant goal.
And, you know, I haven't been fit since 2012 when I ran the
Olympics and I haven't, I haven't done anywhere near a sub
three. I haven't even done a marathon.
Like a sub three hour marathon's bloody hard.
Yeah, you know, and like, I know you know that, but it's, it's
incredibly tough. So it's one of those things that
I think it might take a few years, but it might not.
You might, you might do it. You might do it at Gold Coast.
So I think we try for what you want to do, but then we can
readjust as we go. There you go, I love.
I that's amazing. This is.
This is equal parts kicking the pills as much as it is exciting
because Benita has literally in the 1st 5 minutes of this thing
brought me back to. Her.
Yeah, she sure has. But absolutely wrecked me.
I did have that. Same reaction when you first
said it to me. Why didn't you have the courage
to say something to me? Because I want.
To I want to encourage you to keep to do these things just
like just like Kinani, this is. You know we.
Don't want to tell you too much upfront and discourage you, but
I do have a question 'cause I reckon people out.
Like when I say people there's back on that three hour mark
'cause it is that real. I would say it's the top of the
amateurs right trying to break that three hour.
Is there a set distance 'cause this is a question I'd ask, is
there a kind of like a set kilometres per week you think
you'd need to be able to attain to run 3 hours?
Or it doesn't necessarily exactly have to do with the
kilometres you're running. Yeah, that's, yeah.
I don't necessarily think that I like, obviously, I think the
more you run, the better it is to an extent because we're also
busy. I've coached some people that
run seven times a week and they get injured, they're running too
much and they're trying to break 3 hours.
Whereas I've got other people that run four or five times a
week and they can break 3 hours. So I think while you want to run
more as much as you can, if you're running too much, you're
getting tired and injured, you're not training properly.
That's a detriment to to the programme.
So I don't have number, a set number that I use.
I I have everyone individually coming to me as to what I
decide. But generally increasing mileage
helps. But you've got to do that over,
over a certain time. So say you're running 50-60 KSA
week at the moment. Lee Yeah, ideally you'd want to
be running a little bit more, but then it's that push of, you
know, running. I don't increase intensity and
volume in the same week. So we'll look at one week and we
might increase mileage a bit. Then the next week we're we're
going to increase intensity. And by intensity, I mean that
you're not doing really many interval sessions.
I mostly thresholds and tempos and I, I, I think you need to be
doing that every week. So that's intensity.
So if we're adding that into your programme, I wouldn't be
increasing your volume that week.
We'd look at the volume the next week and then go back to the
intensity. So I cycle through stuff because
if you're increasing everything at once, So with your question,
Courtney, if you're increasing volume every week in a marathon
block, it's too much as well. So I look at, you know, every
second week increasing those long runs and I call them
specific. Oh, there we found Benitas.
We found Benitas trigger word specific.
Yeah, and there it's sort of marathon pays the efforts and
getting longer as we go in the next week, you know, we'd just
be making sure that we're doing those tempo runs that are half
marathon focused and an interval session.
So, yeah, so look, we want to be running more.
And when I was an athlete, you know, I was running near 200 KS
a week. But we're looking at people
with, you know, that are that have got jobs and they're really
busy. And so it's about how can we
manage this volume into a really busy schedule?
So this is, this is great. This is the first lesson here.
If you're a peanut like me whose eyes are too big for your
stomach, if you've set yourself a goal in these first 2-3 weeks
of your training, block you and you're not hitting your times,
reassess, reassess. This is a good opening lesson
for people. If you're out there like me and
you've set yourself a specific goal time.
What about for somebody like Bronte who is embarking?
This is her first marathon now she's run a half before.
I mean general words of advice heading into this sort of 1312
week block leading into a marathon.
Yeah, look, I think for first time marathoners, it's about
getting through the programme, enjoying the journey and and
just really being excited to be on the start line and getting
through the race. So it's not about I want to run
sub 4 hours in my first marathon.
It's not about a time. I always think it's about the
effort and enjoying, enjoying the process and, and getting
that first one done and having a really good experience.
And and that's sort of finishing not, you know, sort of walking
the last 10K. So finishing feeling good and
thinking I wanna do another marathon.
And then that's when you take a bit more risk and you might have
a look at specific paces and stuff.
So the way Bronte's programme and the way a first time
marathon marathoners programme would be would be similar set up
to what I'd how I'd set yours, Liam, but it'd be not focused on
specific paces. It might be more time based with
the long runs. It's about sort of practising
that nutrition and getting into that training structure and and
just enjoying it. So not doing too much as well.
So you know, it's always about what what are you currently
doing and when you're getting into that 13 weeks to go,
increasing your training a bit, but making sure that, you know,
don't do too much. So I think a lot of beginners,
they, they think I've got to do a marathon, so I've got to run a
marathon. To do a marathon, you don't need
to do that. You just need to sort of train,
obviously train harder and and and get your long run volume up
a bit, but just do it in a in a very gradual way.
We've we've kind of given you a little bit of a hard task, only
giving Liam to you and Brawny for 12 weeks.
But if you took a step back, what's the ideal?
Like, what would you consider the ideal preparation phase if
you were, say, next year we're gonna do this again?
Yeah, that's yeah. So if if I was coaching you
Liam, I'd be looking at increasing your speed.
So working on 5K10K half marathon type training and
that's also quite similar. And so if you can, you know, get
a bit faster it like I think your 10 KP was 41 minutes.
Yeah, I've never really had a crack at A10.
Yeah, and and that's the thing too.
So, you know, having some really hard races over 5K or 10K, even
a half marathon, that that sort of work is so good to to do
before you get into a marathon prep.
And you don't even need to do a lot of marathons to be good at
the marathon. It's about having that speed in
your legs. And so when you get into the
marathon training and you train properly for a marathon, you
know it. Your pace feels slow.
So ideally I'd I'd put you in half marathons, I'd put you in
5K10K type races. Maybe you might do one marathon
and then really have a crack at that sub three hour goal as
well. You've spoken about if people
have listened to the previous conversation we had with you
about the where we talked a bit about your athletic career.
You talked about the idea of the mental side of things as well as
the physical side of all this sort of stuff.
To give you an insight into my brain right now, as soon as you
said your 10 KPB and I put you into these races, my head,
literally, I said, well, I'll go out and run a really fast 10K
tomorrow. I'll go out and run tomorrow
I'll go and try and set a new PB to show Benita that I can run
faster than what my that's just what my brain did.
Then just for your understanding, over these next
three months working together, that's how my brain works.
OK, just as context. So you understand that, Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, but like, but I think I
think with your like you're so enthusiastic and so pumped about
it. And so that's what that's what
you need to get into a programme like this as well.
And I running is, it is about the training, but it's also
about your mental focus and and how you adapt yourself because
you'll be doing your training properly by yourself mostly.
And so, you know, I always think people that are really focused
and, and are really excited about their goal, they're going
to train better than someone that's like, I'm not, not really
don't really care about that race.
So I'm just going to go through the motions.
So that's a really important factor when you go into any
programme. Can I ask a bit of a question
about and this, you know, for, for Bronte's programme as well,
you, we are both Bronte and I both work early mornings and we
work, I have full time jobs and these programmes are going to
fit in around our lives. And there's people out there
who'll be listening to this who are starting their twelve week,
13 week block and they have a life to incorporate.
They're not full time athletes. They're not being paid to do
this is they've got this comes around their lives.
Can you talk a bit about the pressure or I guess the ways to
be OK with miss sessions or or or the rest of life getting in
the way of this goal? Yeah, and that's a really good
question. And that's something that we
deal with everyday with people we work with.
And so I think, you know, don't get hung up on the fact if you
miss a, a session or you miss a day or you get sick or, you
know, you're, you've might, you might have a kid that's been
sick through the night and you know, you've been up all night
and you're just really tired. It's about overall consistency,
but it's not about one particular session or one
particular day of training. So I'm not one of those coaches
that says, oh, you've got to make that session up on another
day later in the week. So if you miss something, forget
about that day and you just keep going on with your plan.
I do schedule an easy week within our marathon block.
And that's really important to absorb the training and just
make sure that you're not slightly overtraining.
And when I say slightly overtraining, you know, part of
training is recovery and people that have busy lives, they don't
have time to rest properly during the day.
Obviously they're working or they're looking after kids.
And so if you're not getting quite enough recovery week in
week out, that's when you're not quite absorbing the training.
So we always schedule an easy week and usually some sort of a
race or like 1/2 marathon or some sort of a race at the end
of an easy week or or not, you know, some people just need an
easy week to absorb the training.
So I find that's worked really well for me.
And only increasing the long run volumes every second week is
really good too. So it's one of those things that
if you miss something, don't worry about it.
It's just about the overall thing.
It's not about any particular day.
And even even training sessions, like one training sessions not
gonna like, you know, make you, you know.
Win Improve 10 minutes of. Your time.
Yeah. So it's not about one particular
session. It's just about just doing the
best you can. And like none of us, none of us
can do this perfect. Like I mean, anyone I've
coached, they never do the perfect plan.
If I wrote a plan 12 weeks ahead of time, which I don't do
because I only write plans a week ahead of time because, you
know, life happens and I've got to change things.
And that's why I only programme like I have an idea of what I'm
going to do, obviously, but that's why we don't programme 12
weeks ahead because, you know, you can't just think I've got to
I've got to sit to this real structure of what I'm going to
do in six weeks time might be different to, you know, if
you've got an online plan that's like a static plan.
That's why I'm not a big of those plans because it needs to
sort of move with with what you're doing.
So don't don't stress if you miss something, it's it's
totally I. Love that as a takeaway.
This is the beauty of having a coach or being accountable to
someone else as well, because if you're only by yourself, and I
feel this quite often, you do compare the kilometres.
You do look at something, but as soon as you have someone outside
of just yourself saying to you, it's OK this week, you don't
need to run. You know, it doesn't have to be
like exactly right every week. And you've got the confidence
from that other person that I think whether you're running a
marathon, 10K or doing any sports is one of the biggest
kind of assets you can have someone else to be, to have some
accountability to, to take that off yourself.
And that's what you're going to have for this whole process.
I can guarantee there's lots going off in people's heads
right now who are listening to this and are thinking Anita
sounds really nice. I'd love to like but from
honestly again. Maybe you're getting ahead of
yourself here, Liam. No, no, no, I'm just saying
laceuprunning.com dot AUI just want to say that again here,
laceuprunning.com dot AU because if you're halfway through this
and you're hearing Bonita speak about her coaching mentality and
her attitude towards this, go and check it out.
Laceuprunning.com dot AU Probably not going to be able to
get it in time for the Gold Coast Marathon, but it certainly
sounds like it if it if it has set those alarm bells off in
your head or lit up something, go and have a look and and you
can investigate a bit further and maybe there's something down
the track you can look at well. We just lit up in my head
because exactly what you said about the I'll keep coming back
to these kilometres because with Strava especially, everyone's so
concerned, You know, the graph I sent you, everyone's so
concerned about having this perfect graph of, you know,
progression and that will make me, you know, get better.
But the reality is, like you said, if you miss one session,
you just can't keep playing continual catch up or you end up
injured. Yeah, yeah.
And look, you know, it's one of those things that I'm not from
the thought process of having those perfect rafts or, you
know, anything like that. It's all about how you feel and,
and how much you're enjoying it. And that's going to really work
towards you having a good marathon rather than having
these perfect stats on Strava. So what should Liam or if I was
doing it, what, what should I be looking for then each week to
kind of like tick off and go, you know, I'm I'm happy with
that or progressing with that. Yeah, look, I think if you can
do your long run each week, that's that's probably the main
session each week for a marathon programme and then and one other
session, so an interval session or something like that.
And then the easy days, they're just really easy.
I always say people run too hard on easy days.
So you've got to be holding yourself back and just making
sure that like if you're trying to break three hours and that's
415 pace, your easy day should be, you know, 5 minute case or
slower, so. On the first time as then,
because we've discussed this before.
What you know, I'm just, it's my first marathon.
I'm just starting out. How do you know what that easy
run pace should be? Yeah, look, and that's really
hard. Often I just see what they
currently run at and then just make sure that when we structure
some sessions, that easy pace is slower than that.
But I can guarantee you that most beginner runners or people
that are just in the marathon for the first time, they're
going to be running too fast every day.
So what we want to do, you know with your with your week that
the hard sessions are high. You know, if you're looking at a
graph and the low sessions are low and you want that big
variation with the intensities of your training.
But a lot of beginner runners, their graph is just flat because
every runs the same pace. And so we want, we will all be
telling them to go slower in the easy days and then and we'll do
some little sessions. And that's really fun for
beginner runners because a lot of people, they don't know what
sessions are. And it's really fun to be doing
that. But it's one of those things
that it'll be more on feel rather than plugging in paces.
But I, I will look, we put all our training on training peaks.
So I can look and see, you know, what pace a beginner run is
running in their easy runs and just make sure that they're
running slow enough. But you can do it at heart rate
too. You can sort of just make sure
their heart rate's below 130. Yeah.
So for those who don't know what training peaks is where, how's
that work? So that's what lead you, that's
what you have Liam and Brody on, and that's how you manage
everything. Yeah, So that's just an online
programme that we use for everyone.
So I've got all our all our runners onto training Peaks and,
and each and, and for me as the coach, I plug in the training
for the week ahead. And then you can see it comes to
your phone. You can put the app on your
phone. You can just see what you've got
each day. And you know, some days might be
rest. So it's not like there's
training every day. But you know, I put the specific
details for the sessions and then I can see how you went.
There's a graph. I can even see where you did the
session, but it's more about the feedback.
So you can write little comments in training Peaks and that's
what I look for. So, you know, you might say I
did five times AK at 4 minute pace and felt good or you know,
I really struggled today. And then you might your next
session, you might say I really struggled again.
And then when I look at these comments, I'm going, I think
he's a bit tired. So I might say, OK, we're not
doing a session on Tuesday of the next week because you need
to recover a bit. Right, so this this is actually
really good for me that that honesty of feedback and feeling
post session is really important for you to get from me.
Yeah, yeah, it's so. And when I look at, you know,
Someone Like You with your job too, and this time of year
you're training in some like it's been hot on the Gold Coast,
like you're training when it's hot.
You're not training at 4:00 in the morning where a lot of
people here on the Gold Coast train.
So you might, it might be quite hard the first few weeks until
the weather starts getting cooler.
Yeah. And that's a hard thing for you
over summer too, because you know, if you're doing sort of a
lot of training through summer, it it can the weeks can make you
tired because you're, if you're training at lunchtime, that's
brutal in heat and humidity. Does that give me any benefit
I'm trying to find? I'm trying to find positives for
myself. Yeah, look.
Yeah, like heat. Attuned is that.
Good. Yeah.
Like you can heat. Heat is a stress.
Altitude's a stress. So it's one of those things that
people go on training camps like a we one year before Athens
Olympics, we went to Madrid to train because we were living in
London and it was too cold. So you know, you want to go, you
want, you're only training in heat.
But I think our summer in Queensland, the heat and
humidity is too much for like a prolonged period of like 5-4
months training. So it's it can be quite hard
towards the end of summer. I'm so excited.
I'm I've I've been, I've been kicked down to the lowest rung
at the start of this week. Benita's come on and said it's
going to be tough. But now I'm slowly, but the
excitement is ramping back up. Can I ask some frivolous
questions because again, there's people out there listening to
this who are about to start their journey.
Can we talk shoes? Yeah, I do have as people who
listen to this podcast when I have a brand new yet to be used
pair of Nike alpha flies sitting in my wardrobe that I haven't
felt worthy of. I intend on running the Gold
Coast Marathon in those. What should I be training in?
Yeah, look, I think, I think trainers are good, but I think
you should wear the alpha flies sometimes in these specific
marathon sessions, like just to get used to running in them.
But also I think you recover quicker.
And so, you know, we only do in a marathon prep, we might do
like six of these. So they're only every second
weekend and not even every second weekend.
So you might. But I.
Should run in those shoes for those sessions, yeah.
I think, I think sometimes maybe not all of them, but I think
it's good for you to do that because you actually, your body
recovers. So I think they absorb a bit of
the pounding. So your body recovers a bit
better. And, and marathon training is
not only about, you know, getting used to the marathon
pace and doing all this training, but you've got to
recover between the training to, to get that benefit.
So if you're not recovering, you're sort of training, you're,
you're, we call it overtraining. You're not really overtraining,
but if you're not recovering, you're just getting worse and
worse and worse. So you want to sort of have that
training stress and then you're tired and then you get up to
that new level of fitness, training stress again, new level
of fitness. So you're getting fitter and
fitter. And I think the shoes help.
And so we gotta use what we can use so.
And that's the same advice to a first timer.
Yeah, for sure. No matter what pace you're
running. Yeah, same, same.
But I think with the 1st timer, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be too
focused on the shoes. So the first time is, I think
it's all about just getting a struction programme, maybe
running a bit more. First timers might need to put
in a bit of cross training if they haven't run much and
they're looking at the marathon as it.
So if you've only been running one or two times a week and I
was coaching you, I wouldn't my, my first week of coaching you, I
wouldn't be giving you five runs a week.
I'd be giving you one or two runs a week with some more cross
training to build up your aerobic base.
And then we'd increase the running a bit.
So it's one of those things that the shoes, yeah, they're good,
great technology. But Liam going for a sub three
hours, like that's that, like hardly anyone can do that.
So it's one of those things that when the faster we get, we want
to use things like the shoes to help us more and more.
Whereas like a a first time marathoner, it's about getting
to the finish, enjoying it. Obviously we could use the shoes
that they're great technology, but that wouldn't be one of the
first things I go to as a coach to tell you what to do.
Let's just reiterate that for people out there, the shoes
shouldn't be the first thing on your priority list.
If this is. If your aim is to finish the
marathon, the shoes are the least of your worries, right?
I know everybody wants to look good, Courtney, but the shoes,
again, the least of your worries, There's a lot of other
things you'd be prioritised. What would you take away about
the cross training too? First timers you haven't run
much. That's a great.
Point as somebody who has very much been in the position of not
having money KS much time on feet during the week and then
jumping into a 12 week block. If you're one of those people,
don't I've made this mistake myself.
All that happens is you'll get injured, you'll get injured, and
then you'll get angry and you'll get frustrated and then next
thing you know, you're standing on the start line going, I'm not
ready to do this. So yeah, that that cross
training idea. Can you give us some examples of
things that would tick the box of being cross training that's
not running? Yeah, yeah.
And I think with cross training, you've got to do what you enjoy.
So, you know, I'm not going to tell you to go swimming if you
don't like swimming in. Correct SO.
I don't have to go swimming. That's awesome.
Yeah, I think things like elliptical's good, you know,
bikes good. I I reckon, you know, even even
doing long hikes, if you've got time is because it's time on
your feet as well. But I've got a lot of people
that just love things like, I think elliptical because it's
sort of like a bit on your feet, but but not things like the
rowing machine, I don't think is as correlational.
Like it's a bit of cardio. But I, yeah, I tend to find
riding and if you're doing like hilly rides, I think that's,
that's good. That's it's a good for you as
well. So, but I coach a lot of people
that are quite a number of people that are a bit older than
than us, like over 60 that do marathons and they might only do
1 running session a week, but the other session is like a
black session or something cross training.
So the other intensity session is, is a cross training session
because they can't handle 2 sessions a week.
And then we do a few easy runs. So you can, you can do it like
that too. It's about getting to the start
line healthy. So you want to, and then that
and they incorporate strength training, which is I think a
really good thing to do for any runner.
But especially as we get older, you know, we're losing that bone
density and, and the marathon is about strength.
You know, like you get past 30K and you've got to be strong.
So always like in cross country and marathons because you need,
you need that strength. And if you don't have the
strength, you know, I mean, you know, you're not going to get
through that last part. So I, I think strength training
is important. What are you sitting down?
Smiling about no, I was looking at you just not surprised
actually, I keep coming back to this idea that I never really
realised as a beginner or you talked about someone over 60,
just how little like what was the minimum amount you could run
and you're just saying they're like even some of those over
60s. It's once a week plus cross
training. I, I, I think so many, including
myself, I've got caught in up in this over the years.
If I'm only running, you just want to overrun.
You just think you must have to do so much more than you really
do. But the takeaway is you can only
control as much as you can do individually yourself, right?
You can see all the different programmes you hear from elites,
all the different sessions Liam CS on Instagram, his mates
doing. You've really just got to come
back to you're always better to be underdone and be able to get
to the start line than you are to be overdone.
And I'm a case in point right now.
That is me. I'm loving hearing this, yeah.
Yeah. And look, I think too when we're
so busy, I always think have that have that frame of thought
that we have to always be a little bit underdone because
it's not just the training that's going to get us, but it's
just life that gets us. So if you're training, if I'm
giving you the perfect plan, if you were just in A and like if
you live the life of an elite athlete for the next 13 weeks
and I was giving you the absolute perfect plan, that that
would be too much for you because you've got stuff to do.
You've got kids, you know, you've got a job.
So we have to sort of slightly under train everyone so they get
to that start line ready to go. And I've made that mistake as a
coach. I've coached so many people and
you kick yourself when you think, oh, I probably gave that
person a little bit too much training.
Yeah. And you sort of think it's more
it's your fault as the coach too.
And so you've got to take a bit of that responsibility as well.
And you're better to be on the start line and ready to go and
excited than be there sort of carrying some sort of an injury.
And or, or, or the another thing that's really hard is you're on
the start line and you just wish you'd already done the race.
You're so sick of it. So you don't want to be like
that either. We're going to get into recovery
in an in some episodes down the track a little bit more, but
just starting you, you know, from a minimum point of view, is
there anything recovery wise that you'd suggest like day to
day? Yeah, look, sleep's the biggest
thing. So there's so many recovery
things out there, and I call them gimmicks, but you know, you
can you can go to all these places.
But you know, when I was an athlete and when I tell people
that I coach now, sleep's huge and, and being a, being a mum to
two little kids, I've just never realised how like I've never
been one of those people that I've always been able to sleep
properly, right. And then I had my daughter and
now I've got like a little baby and you're up all the time and
you just feel so tired during the day.
And but then some people live their life like that.
They never sleep properly through the night.
So number one thing is sleep and just making sure you get as much
as you can. But I think, you know, I think
contrast showers are good, ice bars are good.
You know, I'm not huge on the Normatech boots or you know, the
recovery centres as such. I think if you've got time to go
to a recovery centre, you know, you should just be having a
daytime sleep or something. That's that's my view.
I'm here for the daytime sleeps. I'm here for the daytime sleeps.
All right, so this is it. This is we are in the beginning
runs Gold Coast. This is the beginning of this 12
week block that we are heading into.
I have been told unequivocally that my goal of sub 3 is going
to be tough. Bronte is setting out to
complete her first ever marathon.
We will be following these programmes courtesy Bonita
Willis and Lace Up Running. You can go and check them out,
Lace up running.com dot AU Gold Coast Marathon as if you signed
up for this race this year. Follow along, keep in touch with
the programme. We're going to be talking all
things nutrition, fuelling during the race, pre race, post
race, all that sort of stuff. We're going to touch on all
those points we think matter in a Gold Coast, in a marathon
training block for the Gold Coast Marathon over the next 12
weeks as we lead into this. How are you feeling?
Mr Atkinson's having to essentially sit on the sidelines
for all this. Envy.
Yeah, 100% envy. I had my head in doing this
marathon, and that's where half of this idea I'm gonna get
yourself and Brody and Benita to go and have all this excitement
and I'm just on the sidelines. So I'll be here on the
sidelines. I'm gonna be in here for the
whole journey because I'm learning along the way.
There's so many questions we've asked and now we're gonna get
the answers for from someone who's got the expertise in this
space. Final words, Bonita, anything.
As we start, this is is there anything you say to your
athletes, your clients, the people you're coaching at the
beginning of a 12 week block like this?
Yeah, like OSO don't overthink it.
So when you've if you've got a coach and you believe in the
coach and you trust what they're doing, it's it's one of those
things that you you should be enjoying it.
So, you know, like my job often is to hold people back.
So often I'm saying don't do that session.
Just have a rest or things like that.
More so than, you know, being really hard on people, but
enjoying the journey and the more you can enjoy it and relax,
like runnings about being relaxed and, you know, when we
think about our best races or our best thoughts about running,
it's when we're relaxed and, and, and, and, and feeling
happy. And so that's my sort of take on
the whole programme is, is enjoying it, but also trusting
in someone that's looking after it.
So you don't have to sort of second guess everything.
And then you can just go off and, and, and have fun.
And, and just remember too, that the race is about a celebration
of all the work you've done. So it's not, you know, it's not
one of these doom gloom things. It's about sort of it's, it's
something to be pumped for. So that's, that's one thing
that, you know, and we love celebrating what we've done
because it's a journey too, yes. And it's not going to be smooth.
It's going to be like a roller coaster, but just be prepared
for that as well. Well, Benita, I believe, I
trust, I'm happy. Courtney's envious.
Yes. But we're here now, and I cannot
wait to go through the next 12 weeks of this.
And then, as you say, the race itself is a victory lap.
So do everybody out there who's listening along and following
along. Just remember that the race
itself will be a victory lap for all of us.
It's all about just getting their injury free, nail free,
all right? See you next step, Cook.
Bonita lace up running. Thank you again.
Thank you, now I'm pumped.