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Tarawera 100 Preparation, AUTRA Performance OTY, and Low Carb Study Bold Claims feat Zoe Manning | Episode 94 image

Tarawera 100 Preparation, AUTRA Performance OTY, and Low Carb Study Bold Claims feat Zoe Manning | Episode 94

E94 · Peak Pursuits
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This week on the podcast Brodie and Vlad are joined by Zoe Manning, up and coming ultra trail specialist. We get to know Zoe before diving into her preparation for the upcoming Tarawera 100km, contrasting her playful and intuitive training style to Vlad's data driven approach for the same race!

We then cover the AUTRA Performance of the Year award and how it may have been a missed opportunity to engage the trail running community, discuss a controversial study released this week making bold claims about low carb and touch on the many current “runner of the year” awards and trail runner rankings.

We finish this weeks podcast by chatting about the HK 100, the first stop of the World Trail Majors in 2026. James gives us a somewhat controversial question to answer before we let you know what's coming up this weekend!

Results:

***Don’t forget, use code PEAK at https://bix-hydration.myshopify.com/en-au for 20% off Bix products, exclusive to PPP listeners!***

Thanks for tuning in to Peak Pursuits!

Connect with us on Instagram @peakpursuits.pod to share your thoughts, questions, and your own trail stories. Until next time, keep hitting the trails and chasing those peak pursuits!

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Transcript

Episode Introduction and Guest Preview

00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome episode 94 of the Peak the Shoots podcast. This week I'm joined by two people who have a very big race coming up. One of them is our regular host Vlad Ixel over in Perth. Vlad, how are you going?

Insights on Tarawira 100k and Gear Requirements

00:00:22
Speaker
ah Feeling good. Had a cool day in Perth yesterday and actually a cool day the day before. So long run was at about 25 degrees, which is a nice change. Fantastic. That would have been... um That would been very comfortable compared to what you've been running in.
00:00:38
Speaker
And yeah I don't know, i I guess we can touch on it in a moment, but do you know how, what like what's the expected weather at Tarawira, that's the 100k race that you've you've got coming up? I think, I mean, it could be warm, but obviously not as hot as Perth probably, but um it could also rain and be fairly cold. they They have that mandatory gear kit in case it does rain, which is pretty extensive, um but Yeah, last few years has been fairly warm, kind of 25, 26 degrees.
00:01:06
Speaker
Yeah, okay. So it'll feel a bit bit more like the weekend and a bit more relaxed, I guess, compared to your current previous conditions. And another person who's been training through the heat, a different type of heat maybe, um up in Queensland is our guest for this week. So we'll get into introducing a little bit more in a moment, but Zoe um Manning, who is also running the

Zoe Manning's Running Journey and Preferences

00:01:28
Speaker
100k at Tarawira. How are you going, Zoe?
00:01:30
Speaker
Pretty good, thanks. The same here, it's just the heat, enjoying the runs with the heat and not so much with the heat. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. And thanks so much for joining us. um This is your first time jumping on the podcast. We've sort of read your name out a fair few times and um me and Vlad have met you in person over in in Korea. So it's um it's great to have you on the podcast. Thanks for coming. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. No worries. All right, well, we might jump straight in and and we're going to start with getting to know you a little bit Zoe and maybe save save room if James wants to do a longer form interview in the future um and focus a little bit more on maybe what's currently happening but I guess to get some add some context to that um it'd be good to give us a little bit of background of maybe your introduction into the trail running scene how long you've been running for um and sort of how you got into it yeah so I've been running my whole life um but I was a road track
00:02:29
Speaker
cross-country athlete through high school and then i had a little break from running I just wanted to step away from the competitive scene since I'd done it up until I was probably 19 years old and so I stepped back for maybe a year or two years and then I wanted a new adventure so I stepped back into the trail well actually I was going into the ultra running scene and it just so happened that it was trail running that I've been enjoying Yeah, fantastic. So what sort of what sort of running were you doing like before you before you had that break? Like you said, track like did you have a best event or a favorite event or like where was your focus?
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I did the steeplechase was the event I did. I did 2,000 steeple. I did 3,000 a couple times, but I mainly stuck to the 2,000 metres just for a little bit of variety rather than just running circles around the track. Yeah. um yeah but yeah And then I did a couple marathons as well. So the road was probably a bit more enjoyable for me than hitting the track. Yeah okay okay and then you said when you got into the trail running trail running space was more that you were sort of wanting to tackle longer the longer distance have you done some like ultra running races that were not trail or it has it all been trail since you sort of got into it?
00:03:44
Speaker
It's all been trail for me because I've just enjoyed the scenery and the bit of variety that the trail running can offer you in both terrain and just how you process the information that comes at you when you have to come across an obstacle, either physically on course by jumping your log compared to a bit of a flatter, just the one terrain that the road offers. Yeah, definitely. Have you had, um we'll get into a few of the races that you've done, but have you had a favourite race that you've done since you've started doing trail running? Probably the most recent one I did, which was Surf Coast Century, just because of the huge variety
00:04:21
Speaker
of terrain with the running across the rock pools and then the sand and then you go back into the bush, climbing underneath a couple of bridges. And then the race director actually did the race really well. Like it was a very smooth ah running from checkpoint to checkpoint and the course markings were amazing. So that's probably been my favorite race so far.
00:04:45
Speaker
And to add some context to that, Zoe ran that last September and she was first female and ran a pretty quick time over 100 Nine hours, 15 minutes, which like you were saying on that, there's a bit of sand. It's not incredibly healy, but it's it's not by any means um an easy course. There's definitely a lot of challenges along the way, but probably keeps it interesting as well. Bit of variety in that one.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. It's always a bit interesting coming across things you haven't seen before in a race. Just adds to yeah the adventure of it. Definitely. um Looking back at your results over the the last couple of years, um it looks like like mostly your your races, you've been sort of doing the long the longer races, most being sort of ultras or over 40 or 50 Ks.
00:05:31
Speaker
Have you done much short racing or like what draws you to the longer distance racing rather than the shorter distance racing? Yeah, so I've done BTU 25, I think it was, as my short race. But I think the short races remind me a lot about the road running, which I still do road running just in shorter stints. But I think the longer stuff I just enjoy more because it's more time and feet. You see more things. I like how you can have a rough patch and then you can also come out of the rough patch. So there's almost like the pot at the end of the rainbow is
00:06:07
Speaker
you never quite know what's going to happen or how you're going to feel, you know, in 50K's time or in 40K's time or 20K's time. So that's probably something that draws me in is the bit of the unknown and,
00:06:18
Speaker
learning to just accept what's happening in the race because there's nothing much you can do about it apart from eating more, and maybe drinking more, slowing the pace down. So there's things you can control can control, but there's a lot that's just unknown that you don't know what you're going to come across. Yeah, definitely. And it still sounds like whilst you're sort of ultra competitive and winning races and and right up in the mix even sort of racing hard against the men as well. Like it seems that you're still doing it mostly for for purely sort of the love of the sport, which is sort of cool to hear. Like I know my side, on'm and I definitely enjoy that. But when I'm racing, i'm i'm I'm sort of like so focused on the race component. So it's, yeah, it's cool to hear how different people attack the same sort of same sort of thing. it definitely seems to lead to really good performances still. Yeah, it's just amazing. And like the different wildlife you see, I always try and find at least one thing i haven't seen yet. So I saw a bull once on one of my runs and then I've seen nearly got hit by a deer. So there's different things that, you know, create to the experience, even if they're a bit of funny moments.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Um, now we just sort of said that you like, you have done a lot of long races, but you, you, you did that race in Brisbane and that you actually have had some, some really good performances over short distances as well, including, um, when both Vlad and I, I don't know if Vlad had met you before then, but when I met you over at the Asia Pacific champs last year in Korea, where you did the under 23 race, which was the shorter distance because it was the under 23, 15 K, but with a fair bit of climbing.
00:07:56
Speaker
1,000 meters of climbing, I think, um and you were able to you win that race. So you do have really good pedigree over the short

Zoe's Training Philosophy and Coaching Dynamics

00:08:03
Speaker
distances. Anything like have you have you wanted to sort of chase that at all or you're sort of fully focused on that longer distance races?
00:08:11
Speaker
I just don't quite find as much enjoyment from the short races. So I classify short and long races as two different types of pain. yeah And so the short races, you get like like a sharper pain yeah and you kind of know that once you hit that pain, that's that's just the pain for the rest of the race where yeah the longest stuff, it's like a more of an ache and you kind of build up to it. And I enjoy that just constant rhythm that you can get.
00:08:40
Speaker
um and just that type of pain a bit more. And then also knowing that I'm going to be able to come out of a bit more or has the potential to come out of that more negative headspace, which I think is amazing. Not that you get that every race, but I think that's just draws me in is aye you're going to have more obstacles in that longer race for me personally. I know probably get a lot in the shorter too, though.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but it's like you said, it's a different, I haven't done a lot of long races. Vlad's probably done a bit more variety and he can probably attest to it. But like from the outside, it seems like the shorter races, ah like you said, is it very painful, but then they're over and there's nothing you can do about the pain until you just stop at the end of the race.
00:09:23
Speaker
Whereas the longer races seem to have a lot more, like a bit more sort of mental battles throughout, dealing with different obstacles that come up, dealing with a bit more hurt in one particular part of the race.
00:09:36
Speaker
Like there's there's more challenges from that side of things and more things maybe you can control or more things you have to try to control potentially. I don't know. What do you think, Vlad? Yeah, definitely. No, i mean, I think they both have their challenges. I think that my question um to Zoe was, are you getting coached or oh are you self-coached? Yeah, so I'm coached. My dad's coached me essentially my whole life. I went to America for eight months and uni over there. So that's the only time I've ever had a different coach.
00:10:06
Speaker
And it's a really great way for us to bond. And it also means that I don't do any statistics. Like my training session tonight, I'm actually haven't looked at what it is yet. So I'm going to turn up to the training session, have a quick glance at my phone or ask my dad, and then I'll go do the training session. Or when I go to races, I turn up on a start line and i because I'm relatively new to the sport, I generally speaking, don't know who anybody is. So like, I know the very big names, like I know Lucy, not that I've raced her, but I know who she is, but
00:10:39
Speaker
Like when we went to Korea, dad looked at everybody's UTMB, everybody's ITRA scores, and then put them in a little like full ah table and you could see who might be competitive, who might not be competitive. And he kind of like wrote little notes like this person might be a dark horse. So he really enjoys the stats side. um I don't really enjoy that side, but I love how it's a way for us to bond and we can kind of enjoy the experience together just from different perspectives so he does all my coaching um and then we kind of meet sporadically so is that his full-time job is he a running coach so both my parents coach and run um and their but their primary job is actually podiatry so mom does aged care and dad does uh private podiatry so he's got a podiatry clinic that he works he's
00:11:30
Speaker
I would call him semi-retired because he only works three days, maybe four days a week. So he's not a full-time podiatrist, but he's been coaching for 30 years. So he's been coaching longer than i like that I've been alive. He created a running club back when recreational runners weren't actually trained and coached. So his whole idea was to get recreated recreational runners coached. So that it gave them an opportunity and showed them that the benefit of the social side of sport and like that they can still improve through coaching as well. And that push towards the longer distances, which is not very common for for ah younger athletes like yourself, is that push was coming from yourself, a bit more from your parents? Yeah, so it was funny growing up. it was
00:12:17
Speaker
Dad did his first marathon when he was 16 years old. It was road. And I think that... inspired me I wouldn't say he pushed me or my mum pushed me to do the longer distances but I definite definitely think it was an inspiration from being like oh I want to give that a go and then once I tried it I was like I absolutely love this so I did my first marathon I think when I was 17 which we just ran easy and one of our things is when you ever for you try a new distance no matter how far it is You just do the first race kind of easy to feel it out and see if you kind of enjoy it. That way you're more likely to come back and do it again as well.
00:12:56
Speaker
And obviously there's a big jump from marathons to 100k trail races. What got you, I guess, motivated to do one of the longer trail races?
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, so ah there was a couple people in my running club that mentioned Surf Coast Century a few years ago as a great 100k they had just done And i was like, oh, that actually sounds a bit exciting. I want to give that a go. So I knew I had to do a 50K first.
00:13:25
Speaker
So I went and did a 50K and then i was like, you know what? There's a local 100K that's only... couple hours up the road. I'm going to go give that a go maybe four months later, i five months later, I think it was. So then I went and did the hundred k and I was like, oh, that's actually quite a bit of fun. so it was just, I think for me and at my point of running, a lot of it's just curiosity and I'll go try something and be like, oh, I want like, let's see if I can do that. Or, oh, some people are doing, you know, 100Ks or miles. Oh, let's just see what it's like. Cause there's a, I'm fully aware there's a chance I might not enjoy it.
00:14:01
Speaker
But I think that's a part of the experience is experiencing things is ah not enjoying something, but still giving it a go. Cause then I don't have that thought of, oh, I wish I would have done it. It's, oh, I'm glad I did it. Even if I didn't necessarily have a good experience.
00:14:15
Speaker
So one thing with my experience is that I started running a bit later in life. Like I started running at the age of 25 and I train with a lot of young guys who run very, very quick. And even though I've been doing track workouts quite often for the past few years, I still struggle to get to that speed. And my thinking is that, you know, they obviously been doing it since a very young age. They're like, you know, max speed is a lot higher than mine.
00:14:42
Speaker
Are you ever worried that maybe going very long at this age right now, you stop in your speed development? i I'm not so much worried about it because I just, I think it's more important for me to stay in the sport and continue to do something that I love than trying to push me to do something that I necessarily don't enjoy so much. And then that affecting me because it's more important that I love sports.
00:15:09
Speaker
Cause I love being on my feet and being out in the bush for hours. And that's really important for me. And I know that's, what's going to keep me doing something that I'm passionate about, where if I go and do a whole bunch of speed, I'm probably not going to enjoy running as a whole as much. And then I'm less likely to be like, oh, i want to continue this. Or, you know, I think I'm just going stop racing for a little bit or stop running for a little bit. It's really the cool. It's a very mature answer from, from a very young runner. Yeah, I wish I had that maturity.
00:15:40
Speaker
It looks like your parents did the right thing with with their guidance and being role models to you. um And now you're there for to enjoy whatever you are, whatever you want to do in running and not being too focused on speed and, and you know, maybe the shorter distances that people your age would be closer to at this point.
00:16:00
Speaker
um But, yeah, moving on to Terra Aura, which is three weeks away. What kind of training have you been doing in the past, I guess, few months leading up to Terra Aura? Yeah, so my training block for Terra Aura started,
00:16:15
Speaker
I want to say December, probably beginning December, I started training. So I did my last race of the year, which was black hole. And then I actually went and had surgery. So I got my plate removed and I just needed, well, didn't necessarily need, but I had finished all my exams for uni and I needed a break just from the mental load of everything. So I had a couple of weeks off, recovered my body and then was like, all right, let's go back into training. So we had steady, gradual, we generally do two strong weeks of higher mileage and then we'll do ah like a more a more of a recovery week. And then that might be, you know, looking at a hundred K and then we have another few strong weeks and then a recovery week. so
00:16:55
Speaker
i recently did my two highest, highest mileage weeks. So I hit 166 and 168
00:17:02
Speaker
um And in those weeks, I dropped back that speed work. So I'm still doing it, but everything's done by effort. So if I feel like my body needs to slow down a little bit, I might like back off the pace and I just run how my body feels. My dad, who's, as we discussed as my coach, um will actually not give me times for the reps that I do. So I might have, you know, 2K reps or 500 meter reps, but we won't have a time that I'm aiming for. We just run purely off how I feel. So those are what the higher mileage weeks might look like. um And now we're heading to taper. So bit more sleep now, which is always enjoyable. But, you know I've really enjoyed those runs that I've had.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I've enjoyed the training as well. So when you say that you go by feel, you don't really have a pace to go by using heart rate or literally just feel I feel good today. i'm going to run fast. I'm not feeling great. I'm going to slow down.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, so i don't trust the heart rate monitor on my watch. so i have never used heart rate. um My dad looks a little bit right now, I think. I don't know too much about it. He's connected to my watch so he can see everything I do. I'm not very good at writing down my re my times for reps or how I feel. So he is connected to my watch so that ah that hassle is removed.
00:18:26
Speaker
um But it's just how I feel. It's literally going, oh, my legs are feeling a bit tired and I'm feeling quite lethargic. I don't feel like I have enough energy for this pace to be worth the push.
00:18:40
Speaker
So I'm going to slow back my pace and focus on just getting the rhythm down and how I'm actually, so the cadence and how I'm feeling in my body or, you know, right now I'm feeling really, really energetic and I'm feeling absolutely amazing. I'm going to push a little bit harder than what I usually might and see what I can get. And then that times might be a bit quicker. So it just depends really on how I physically feel and even mentally feel that day. So I go in and I've had a huge, you know, week of study back last year and I might back off on all my training. So like given my long runs might be cut in half or something just so I can have that mental break as well.
00:19:21
Speaker
Obviously, you've done a 100K race before. Is there like any metrics that you want to be hitting in this training block to feel confident that you can improve in your next 100K in TerraWare? Yeah, so ah previously I hadn't done a 50K easy run. And so I've done two since then in this training block. And that's probably something that I'm pretty happy about is just getting fifty k in and getting that mileage in without a race. So that makes me just feel a little bit more comfortable in being out there on my own. My partner comes in cycles next to me, but he'll maybe do 12K or so. So just being out there by myself is something that I think is a really good feeling.
00:20:01
Speaker
And just going forwards, it's like, all right, I don't need necessarily somebody right next to me the entire time and I can go and do this race. Obviously, you've had some really good results already in in in trail running. What is the goal for Tarawera? Are you going there with a specific goal or just going to see how you feel on the day?
00:20:21
Speaker
um A lot of it is about how I feel and just the effort that I'm going into. I think and to make me happy, not necessarily happy because probably, yeah, make me feel happy about my result, I'd like to get a quicker time than Surf Coast Century. I know it's got a bit more elevation. I believe it's 500 metres more elevation. I don't really look at course maps before I do races either.
00:20:46
Speaker
um So I think it's 500 metres more elevation, but like I really don't know what the terrain is going to be like. I don't know what the weather is going to be like, um especially with ah the natural disasters they've had recently. I don't know if that's going to affect the course at all. I think there's so many unknown elements that you kind of have to run off effort personally for me my dad has a whole bunch of goals he told me today that he has a whole bunch of goals for me but um and like the metrics of it all the pacing because my partner's gonna crew me and he's got all this big plan but we're not going to discuss it until we're in New Zealand so two days before the race we might talk about it briefly but he doesn't
00:21:27
Speaker
We don't necessarily go really in depth to it because we think it's for me personally in the way that I run and I perceive trail running, it's about effort and how I feel so that in the end we call it the feel good goal and I can still feel like I've achieved something out of the race.
00:21:43
Speaker
It's really cool. It's really refreshing where like, you know, and most elite runners are very data driven, Strava driven, goal driven, where, you know, your side of thinking about running is a bit more refreshing, which is cool. And and I think that will hopefully allow you to stay in this game for a long time, which will mean that you're going to have better and better results as you go on. Yeah.
00:22:07
Speaker
So I am i'm excited to see how you do in Terra Era and then post Terra Era. But um yeah, it's definitely refreshing to hear that you kind of just go by feel on pretty much everything. probably Probably highlights that we could all be doing a little bit more of that.
00:22:22
Speaker
if it ah I was just thinking like it sounds like the coaching, obviously it's father daughter relationship as well, but the the coach athlete relationship seems to be like really effective.
00:22:35
Speaker
um in terms of how how you guys are doing it with like you sort of judging stuff mostly off feel but your dad sort of your dad or your coach being there and he's look he's checking the data and I'm sure if he saw something that was like a big outlier then or something that he thought needed changing then that might be where he intervenes but maybe because you're going off feel so much, you're not actually needing that that feedback so often. So yeah, but but it's there, it's' it's there if it's needed with with him sort of being there in the background. So yeah, sounds really effective. Yeah, sometimes he might end of the race, you know, there's, I think it was my first hundred that we did, he was messaging, he was running, but my mum was crewing me. So he was messaging my mum and towards the end of the race, We kind of got into that stats actually during the race. And she's like, all right, I think it was you have this many minutes and you could break the record if you keep going the pace you're going. So sometimes stats do come in, um but it's kind of you go off. They can read me a little bit since they've known me my whole life. And um they'll go off by field boom.
00:23:45
Speaker
the first half so it's like just make sure you start the race you feel comfortable but you're still running steady so that's kind of the start of the race and then the rest of the race will come later because you don't know what's going to happen in a hundred case yeah just it's really interesting how like how well that sort of like long-term coach relationship works like at i um I was listening to the the interview James did with Ian and he's been working with his coach for six years and he was sort of saying he just sort of he knows him really well. So even if there was like a particular training technique that might make a minimal difference, like it's not as
00:24:22
Speaker
it's not as beneficial as how well his coach knows him. um So, yeah, it's it's it's really interesting. And i'm I'm getting so many parallels. I don't know if it's just because it's father daughter, but like I've listened to Jess Hull talk about her dad coaching her and there's just like some similar parallels there that it just, yeah, it actually seems like a it is ah is a really beneficial coaching relationship. Ingebrigtsen also has the father um son coaching. Yeah, that one might be the less good one. did well. like you know Obviously, they've got some really good Yeah, nice.
00:24:58
Speaker
um James did have one question, Zoe, that he wanted or one thing that he wanted to hear a little bit about and that was the the race you did, one of the races you did last year, the Rainbow Beach Trail Festival.
00:25:10
Speaker
um When you stood on that, and I think he wants to know mostly around like the people that you were racing there and how it how it panned out. But when you... I think you were sort of saying earlier that like you don't know everyone that's on the start line. Like when you turned up to that race, did you know who you were racing on the day? no So I knew I didn't know anybody who anybody was really, um which, yeah you know, I think it can be probably on the more naive side, but I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily because then I don't have that pressure of being slotting myself into the UTMB or the ITRA score. I'm like, this is how I have to perform, which is a part of why i enjoy not knowing who I'm raising. Um, but dad did tell me like both Beth and Mel, uh, have won worlds in triathlon, I think. Um, yeah or Beth, I think Mel's won, uh, a world's triathlon and Beth's done a really amazing run. And you know, she's just won Javelina last year, which is absolutely incredible.
00:26:13
Speaker
Um, So I didn't really know anybody, but I am, it was interesting in the fact that me we knew Mel was going for the record. So oh everybody, well, us three, four knew Mel was going for the record and both Ella, Beth and I were all doing a training run. So rainbow beach wasn't actually a race for any of us and it just so happened that we were able to uh get top four females for that race and we probably found out about say i'd add the context to that one if if people don't remember that was yeah a race earlier in the year where top four positions were all females and and yeah very quick times from from everyone running
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, so that ah one of the things that Dad and I like to do is have a race that might be a shorter race but imitate the longer race. So the Rainbow Beach race got me running on sand, which I had never done before because we knew Surf Coast had a lot of sand. And I also didn't carbo load. So it was the safe way for me to understand why something was so important because, you know, you get told to carbo load so often. but you never actually understand or have the experience of why it's important. So that race, we're able to understand why it was important to carbo load, but still doing it in a safe environment. So we had like the checkpoints and the racing environment of people seeing you. But Beth, that was quite amazing. Sorry, sorry, I was just going to that.
00:27:45
Speaker
They're interesting to note because we're going to come back to a a news article at something in the news about sort of carbo loading. Did you notice a difference of when you did didn't do that so you didn't do the carb load for this to sort of feel the difference is that right is that what you're saying yes so I didn't carbo load and I 100% felt it I think I felt it by 28 30 ish k in I remember getting to one beach and being there's a really long like 10k long beach and then you've got a bit of a trail section and then you hit another beach and as soon as we hit that other beach i was like
00:28:20
Speaker
my body does not feel fantastic right now It still feels safe and I still feel good and I can keep going. But I can tell that I'm starting to struggle a little bit in such an early position, like still having 12K to go into that race. So carbo loading made a huge difference for me. Yeah, interesting. And then when you did the difference between the two, like Was your not carbo loading just eating normally? Or did you still sort of try and have like a little bit more carbs and you just didn't go sort of all in? Like what was the what was the difference between the the two approaches?
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, so carbo loading um for Rainbow Beach, was which is when I focused on not carbo loading, is I ate normally and then the night before, which is a almost a superstition or a ritual for me, is I eat pancakes. So my carbo loading consisted of pancakes for dinner the night before.
00:29:12
Speaker
Nice. Yeah, okay. and then And then like so that was different to you. When you do your normal carbo load, are you like looking to really maximize, like, are you going for that? What is it, the eight to 10 grams of carbs per, like, are you getting really clinical with it when you're doing it for other races or are you just sort of eating a lot of carbs?
00:29:31
Speaker
Just eating a lot of carbs. Usually okay ah usually I make pancakes and I put a like a cube of chocolate in the middle and then put some pancake batter on top and I just carry a little bag of pancakes around and just snack on it all day for one and a half days.
00:29:46
Speaker
Yes, so, yeah, you're just on those, not not looking into it unsurprisingly, not digging into the garden too crazy, but you're really just trying to be a bit of aware and and having more than you normally would on on those day and a half before and you notice the difference between the two. That's really cool. Yeah, and I didn't salt load. So usually I and might do a little bit of a salt load and I didn't salt load for the Rainbow Beach either.
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, cool. And how was it um racing those like really incredible um women that you were, like the really speedy girls that you were racing? Like was it, was it for did you get to run with them for some of it? Like how did it how did the actual race pan out?
00:30:27
Speaker
So we ran together, I want to say until about 30K nearly from the beginning. So Mel was gone. mel ran off and we essentially didn't see her again. We saw her briefly on that really long beach stretch, but that's because you could see four kilometers. But otherwise we ran together. We chatted a little bit as well. So we just kind of ran and chatted and had some the most amazing time. We didn't realize we were top four, like the top four were female until some of their crew came past and were just cheering us on. And they're like, there's no men ahead of you.
00:30:59
Speaker
And so like, oh, well, we better, know, weve got you know keep pace now and not let the men catch us again. um Yeah, fantastic. Because it was just such an amazing experience and being able to run next to those two girls and chat with Ella and Beth was, ah I found really special and just quite amazing experience because we had the beach right there with the sun and it was quite magical. Yeah, cool. Sounds like a good race and sounds like it was good prep for Surf Coast, which was just ah a bit of, like it was about a month later, is that right?
00:31:32
Speaker
ah Yeah, I think so. um think it was a better one. Fantastic. Cool. yeah um Vlad, do you have any other questions for Zoe at the moment? No, no, really. I'm um definitely excited to see how you do in Tarawera and just generally following along. your your journey um being so you know so easy about it not getting too stressed and just enjoying you know the basics of running and trail running which is really really cool i'm i'm guessing i might know the answer to my next question already my last question but do you have any plans after tarawera or are you sort of deciding that later on
00:32:13
Speaker
So I've got my next three races planned. um Okay. I've got Terrawera 100k and then we're going to Brighton. We're going to do Buffalo Stampede 42k and then we're going to go and I'm going to try another miler. So I'm going to go do UTA miler. Fantastic. So it's got so six weeks and then four. Three heavy hitters in the first five months. That's going to be yeah nice. That's right.
00:32:37
Speaker
It'll be interesting but I'm very much looking forward to just seeing how it goes and obviously um i'm aware that the 100k and bright is uh the trail championships long distance chance yeah yeah so you know going off field with how we train if there's something that you know i start feeling a little niggle or something we might drop out or you know lower the distance from the miler to the 50 if possible we never because the races you are sold out now but
00:33:08
Speaker
we'll go by feel a little bit and if my body does need that break we might drop the mileage or drop the distance definitely and um just before we move on i'm you mentioned before you're studying like what else are you balancing you're running with at the moment yeah so um last year was a massive year so i started uni uh did my completed my first year of uni we also moved house in march so Once the uni semester had started, i was having to go to house inspections and then we had to move house the day after 50K run I did. I think it was my first 50K run of the year. And we actually went and slept on a mattress for a week after that. um And then i started, i had a job as well and I'm about to start a new job soon and I'm about to move house again um in the next few months. So it's all a bit of an unknown element of the new house. It's just a lot going on, but it's a part of it. And, you know, it might be beneficial because it might train my brain a little bit to try and handle different things. It'll just be interesting and we'll see how it goes. Yeah, cool. And what are you studying at uni?
00:34:22
Speaker
So I'm actually studying podiatry. Ah, cool. Yeah, I don't think I want to go into aged care, though, which is what mum does. um Yeah. So we'll see.
00:34:35
Speaker
See how you go. Fantastic. And I forgot my one question that I did have. We were going to potentially record yesterday, but you were doing a beer mile. What time did you get in the beer mile? So I got 806 my beer mile, which is slower than I did last year, but it was also probably about 10 degrees hotter. We did it 3 p.m. So I think it was 37 degrees when we did it. um And of course, on a running track, you don't have much shade.
00:35:03
Speaker
yeah But it was absolutely amazing. We had... um 15 come and I think some people brought their kids and they did creaming soda when they were doing the beer mile. It was just about bringing the community together and it was absolutely amazing.
00:35:19
Speaker
Cool. Nice one. Sounds fun. Awesome. All right. Well, thanks for all of that. It's been great to sort of hear about. your journey so far and a little bit, get to know you a little bit better as well as hear about Tarawara.
00:35:31
Speaker
A quick break in the show to thank Bix. Bix has just come out with their 30 gram gel in two brand new flavors. This is a new gel, new flavors. You've got the choice of the salted strawberry or the berry. The salted strawberry is also packing 300 milligrams of sodium as an increase, whereas the berry has 200 milligrams. Both make them perfect for the conditions we have in Australia, yeah whereas most gels on the market do not have sodium within them. What Bix has done here is take the recipe for the gels that work so well, that 1.8 ratio that is very, very friendly on the stomach and added a soft, subtle, but very tasty twist that you can dial in your race day and your training nutrition to that extra fine detail.
00:36:11
Speaker
As you know, bix has been supporting the show from the start and it literally helps keep the podcast coming to you every week. So if you want to support the show, level up your own nutrition game, head over to the Bix website, use our brand new code PEAK, P-E-A-K for 20% off at checkout. And with that, let's get back to the show.

Vlad's Training Regime for Tarawera

00:36:28
Speaker
I guess that's a good segue into someone else's doing taro and maybe tackling it a little bit differently. A bit more data, I reckon. Vlad, how are you going? what's What's been up with the training and and how are you tracking?
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, definitely, definitely more data. um A lot of paces are pre-planned, you know, in advance. I think probably where I'm a little bit more flexible is at long runs where they will be done a little bit more by feel.
00:36:55
Speaker
um But otherwise, the rest of it is very pace-driven. I do have, you know, my heart rate monitor, like an arm one. So I don't use the watch one because, like you said, it's not...
00:37:08
Speaker
Very accurate, but I do use the strap on my arm and that's fairly accurate. So that gives me a good gauge of feel and do try and kind of stay within certain zones. But yeah, my main goal is just to hit two hundred k a week for the past few weeks um so i think i have maybe four weeks of 200k and then hopefully this week if everything goes to plan gonna hit another two hundred kai week and then it's all and then two weeks of taper um but
00:37:40
Speaker
yeah pretty excited about the race for sure um knowing you know how competitive it is are definitely had to kind of maybe change goals maybe a little bit and just go more about like trying to do my best um but you never know also when you get to race day how it all kind of folds and pans out so yeah definitely excited okay cool it definitely looks like you've put yourself in the position to be as competitive as possible like the training you've been up to the last like you said the last four weeks with those those big weeks of training um those look really good but yeah like you said you're up to against some some heavy hitters who have also been training really well like i saw something from dan jones about his training as well and he's been hitting some pretty big mileage so yeah it's going to be definitely be a tough one for you but um
00:38:31
Speaker
It's looking good. Have you like any key sessions that you felt have gone like really well that giving you a lot of confidence? I saw a Strava with a picture of a lot of gels. um Yeah, I think probably the 60K that I did two days ago.
00:38:46
Speaker
um that brought a bit of confidence. um I think not the run itself, but just the recovery for the next day. i don't know. Personally, for myself, I know I'm fit when I recover quick between long runs and sessions. um So just being able to run like without any pain 24 hours after that long run um kind of gave me a bit of confidence and time wise on on like sessions and stuff i definitely slowed down because i'm going such high volume so if i'm doing a 50k trail run on sunday i don't want to be going all out on a tuesday track session
00:39:26
Speaker
So I have been going a little bit slower. And yeah, in that sense, I haven't really done any times that would kind of make me feel fit. um But then if I kind of take my heart rate into account, then I'm probably maybe one or 2% better than what I was in December, which is um is already a good thing. yeah But yeah, for me, it's all about the confidence from those long runs. I was having a look because Hong Kong 100, which we might talk a bit about towards the end of this show, but that was on a few days ago as well. And I had a look at some of my training leading up to Hong Kong 100 2014. The training that I did to that. And yeah, ah I got some, I did well at that race because I put in a seventy five k
00:40:13
Speaker
long run three weeks before the race. um So I yeah kind of went with the same mentality that I do need those long runs and was able to do a 50K, 55 and a 60K long runs, which yeah hopefully will bring some confidence come race day. Yeah. And then I'm like, I don't know, like what the the paces are that that they run in Tarawela, but like what's what's the pace that you're doing the other day, you're doing like four twenties or something for a relatively flat 60K, but still like a little bit of climbing. um
00:40:46
Speaker
Like, are you getting close to paces you think can be competitive at the top end or like how does that compare to say Dan Jones Dan Jones probably ah special maybe yeah whoever was second in hundred k last year like or third like how's it how's those pay are you aware of how your paces are stacking up against those um I mean, Dan Jones' gap pace last year was 351, which is pretty quick on trails.
00:41:16
Speaker
um yeah If you take all the stops as well, which so Terrowera doesn't have too much support during the race, like you only have... two or three crude stations so that meant that he would have literally stopped in all other so stations to fill up his bottles so there's a few good minutes of not running um so technically that pace is even quicker um but yeah i think that i did a 50k six seven months ago um at pace
00:41:49
Speaker
flat roads. Um, so if I can run around four tens in Tara where a four 15 gap pace, I think that'll be good. So that might be around a four 24, 25 pace. I think that'll be a really good day.
00:42:05
Speaker
Um, But yeah, I think it would still be my best day would still be pretty far from winning that race just because of the level of the runners are going to show up. Do you mind if I ask? Sorry, go on though. I was going to say, do you go into race with multiple goals or do you just go in with the pace goal?
00:42:26
Speaker
ah Multiple goals for sure. I mean, goal number one whenever I go to any ultra is to finish it, um especially 100k and i have not done 100k since 2015. So realistically, I know that that's my number one goal.
00:42:40
Speaker
um I think in my mind, like, you know, knowing this is a golden and ticket race, I thought maybe it's a possibility if... ah the competition wouldn't be that stacked. And if you look at last year, that's, I guess, what kind of everybody thought. i kind of looked at the results last year and I went, that wasn't that competitive compared to the other Golden Trail racers. So that's probably why i was like, oh, better do it next year. But a lot of people probably thought exactly the same, um which means that this year is very competitive. And maybe next year will be less competitive because everybody will think, oh, well, this year was very competitive. I'm not going to do it next year. um But yeah, I think that pace is obviously always hard on trails considering temperature. um
00:43:23
Speaker
I also like last time I was in Tara where I did the 50K in 2017 and I remember the course being fairly quick, but it's still trails. um But yeah, I think I'll go towards middle of zone three lower zone three um effort for me um which my heart rate is probably around 155 156 around there and if i can hold that um that be a good day but yeah it's still pretty hard to hold that for eight hours
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah that's your sort of time. I mean, is that the main thing that's predicting your like your effort for the day would be heart rate or is it? I guess that the only thing that's the only thing that I could really um you know kind of think about. Obviously, it's going to be effort as well and what's happening in the race as well. But I guess if I had to think about it, then heart rate would be the most kind of even thing, even though like, you know, I've done so many races where my heart rate just jumps up straight away, right at the beginning and doesn't fall back till two or three hours later on. So, you know, also don't want to be too caught up with heart rate. Um, so yeah, it's a combination of a few things and I think I'll do better as I'm getting back into longer races. So last year i did,
00:44:45
Speaker
three or four ultra marathons um and yeah hopefully with a couple more i'll get a better feel for effort pace and and heart rate combined yeah yeah cool well that's uh it's gonna be exciting to see how that pans out and you said you've got one more big week of training and then and then it's sort of a bit of a um ah sort of lighter few weeks into the race is that right Yeah, i mean, from my experience, i'm not a I don't do too well when I taper too hard. um Yeah, this week will be a normal week except the long run is not going to be as long.
00:45:21
Speaker
um And then, yeah, I'll start slowing down for the two weeks before. But most of the taper will be in the final kind of five days. that's where That's what's worked for me in and in the last few years is is a shorter taper. Fantastic.
00:45:37
Speaker
All right, well, Good to hear and yeah looking forward to seeing how you both both go over there in New Zealand. um We'll probably do, I assume we'll do a bit of a preview episode given when there's a ah large contingent of Australians going across so um yeah look out for that one.
00:45:55
Speaker
um But yeah I'll give a bit of a quick update and then we'll get on to some news so yeah I think last time before, last time I was on was maybe a few weeks ago i before I went to Tassie so i went down to to Tassie and ran in the mountains a bit, which was which was fun. um Had to go at a couple of sort of FKT routes that were ah in the mountains. um So yeah, a good challenge. One of them ah was at Freysenay National Park and it was like this, like yeah not really a trail, it like you had to sort of find your own way. um
00:46:30
Speaker
with a few cans maybe, but it was um across the hazards, which is the four, well, there's five of them that are across the the front of Wineglass Bay. um But they're like big granite, maybe like 400 meter high sort of granite mountains, like scrubby bush in between them, lots of cliffs and um navigating my way up and down steep boulders and bare rock and that sort of stuff. So that was a lot of fun, but it was very hard. So yeah, it's cool to sort of do some adventurous stuff down in Tassie.
00:47:00
Speaker
um And then, yeah, just building building back slowly. I'm sort of doing about 60 to 70 Ks week at the moment, but just going by i feel a bit more, really dialing into that.
00:47:15
Speaker
um And I've just been jumping in, like I don't really have a training program. So I sort of think about like, I want to do a couple of harder sessions a week, one trying to get a bit of flat, faster running, and then one sort of longer run.
00:47:29
Speaker
um And that's sort of like my, bed sort of the minimum I'm trying to achieve each week. And then the rest is sort of just what what can I get in around that and my gym. so I've been jumping into Kate's sessions, Kate Avery sessions, and just doing whatever she's doing, which has been fun and running with her. um And then sort of getting out and doing some some long runs and whatnot. I went out to Donna Buang, Warburton on the weekend to do the Donna double course.
00:47:58
Speaker
There's money talks, and I think I'll have a crack in March because I got nothing else on the calendar. So yeah, it was... my body tolerated it fine so um actually sort of felt better the next day my achilles than it did the day before so i actually think it's yeah it's not so much a negative stimulus um a different thing racing it but um yeah i think being this far out i think it's like six weeks or five weeks away um i'm confident that i can i can race it um i'm not going to rush fitness but i'll just
00:48:31
Speaker
run it as hard as I can on the day, um get in amongst it. I don't think I'll probably come fifth or fourth just outside the money. But um yeah, I'm looking forward to being a part of that race because I'm sure it'll draw a competitive field and and I'm pretty good at the downhill. So no matter, even though I'm not so good on the uphill and I'm not super fit, like it's a sort of race where I can still be competitive at the moment because I can do the downhill pretty quick.
00:48:55
Speaker
um So yeah, that's that's me. It's been a good couple of weeks.

Discussion on ORTRA and Trail Running Awards

00:49:01
Speaker
uh all right we'll jump on to the news topics of the week so this is yeah we've got a couple of things that we wanted to sorry i just knocked my mic go around uh go into so have we have Yeah, the first thing that we're we're going to touch on and and probably people, unless you're an AUTRA member yourself, you wouldn't have seen this a little piece of news, but their voting at the moment is currently open for
00:49:32
Speaker
the 2025 AUTRA Performance of the Year Awards. um So yeah, this award ah can only be voted on, I believe, by AUTRA members, um or at least that's the only way I've seen advertised. I'm an AUTRA member because ah needed to sign up for World Champs last year.
00:49:51
Speaker
um So I got the email. I don't know if both of you guys are AUTRA members. Yeah, had to sign up for yeah Korea. Yes, yeah, yeah. So yeah, just ah an interesting, we'll go through a little bit of how how it's voted for and and who's in it. So um nominations are made by ORTRA members. So an email was sent out, I think in December, but again, it was over the Christmas, New Year period. I didn't even see it, to be honest, um but that was to nominate people.
00:50:21
Speaker
um But you could only nominate someone who is the person who is, the person who wins the award has to be an ORTRA member themselves. So so it does limit ah the people that you can nominate. Usually the ORTRA will pick the top five of the nominations, but this year they decided to keep all 11.
00:50:39
Speaker
um And I guess the thing of note and why we're sort of talking about it is there's only really two ah what we would call maybe traditional trail runners on the list of the 11. um And those two are Ben Burgess and Nicole Patton for both of them for their runs at the World Mountain and Trail Running Champs.
00:50:57
Speaker
So yeah, it was just a bit of an interesting thing to have ah a ultra and trail running awards, but only have two. people doing trail races although maybe you could call Phil Gores back at ultra a little bit of a halfway between the two probably more ultra than it is trail but um yeah still still sort of a bit of a trail run and there was no sub ultra so I actually think Ben and Nicole's performances were the shortest distances potentially um So yeah, it's just an interesting to have a trail running a award that doesn't have, well, it's not only trail, but trail running award that doesn't have that many trail people nominated for. And then I guess it's a little bit limited because its own it can only be AUTRA members nominating and then it can only be given it to someone who has AUTRA membership. So it's ah it's a bit of yeah.
00:51:51
Speaker
bit of an interesting award um yeah I'm not sure if you guys had any thoughts about it i was a bit surprised when I saw the list of people come through and I was like they've missed a lot of trail runners um but then it sort of makes sense that some of those trail runners probably aren't ultra members yeah I think they could have first of them they'd done it a little bit earlier maybe in the year um end of January. It feels like everybody has done their trail running awards worldwide. if It's free trails and other podcasts. um It is nice that we have a bit more of an Australian one, but yeah, i definitely agree that it could maybe be separated for trail and and and road and or distances um because it feels like some of the trail races are a lot more competitive than some of the ultra races. And ah you know Ben's result, for example,
00:52:40
Speaker
could be against a lot higher competition than some of the other nominees. But yeah, I think it would just take time till it all kind of falls into place and trail gets a bit more attention from the guys at Ultra.
00:52:53
Speaker
But yeah. I think the only thing that I would probably say about it is there was one race that had two nominees from their performances of that race. And so they've got, if it's the best performance of the year, i feel like it would be ah you should be taking the top of Australian or ultra performance of that race. And then you could put somebody maybe in another event who's done an amazing performance. Not that her performance isn't amazing. It just wouldn't be the top performance of the year.
00:53:25
Speaker
Are you talking, is that the Costa Cosi one? Jenny White and Holly... Ransom at the 24-hour track chance. Yes, at the same. Yeah, the 24-hour chance. And Holly Ransom's result there, fantastic. And also Jenny's also amazing. And Jenny contributed to a team result. But, yeah, I would probably agree there that, like, if you're calling it performance of the year, then how can arguably Jenny's actually be performance of the year? How can she be voted ahead of Holly? So, yeah, that's an interesting point. Yeah.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I sort of like it just feels not that relevant to me. Like I'm just, I'm not that interested about it because I see no trail. I don't see that many trail runners on there. Obviously, it's great to have Ben and Nicole on there and their runs were amazing. So I'm not trying to sort sell them short.
00:54:12
Speaker
But to to me, it just doesn't feel like it is going to be the ultra and trail runner of the year because they're missing a bunch of people. Like you can't you can't call someone the ultra and trail runner of the year if you're only...
00:54:26
Speaker
including people who are members of a particular thing like it. Yeah, it's an interesting one because I understand why they've done that, because they want people to be members. And also it makes sense for them to like if they're giving it out an award, it would make sense that the award they're giving to is someone who's involved with their organization.
00:54:44
Speaker
um But yeah, I just it doesn't it doesn't feel completely right to me. So yeah, I don't know. Hopefully, as you said, Vlad, that will improve over time as trail gets a bit more absorbed into that and and probably the big issue which is something that um James popped on for us to have ah maybe a quick a quick chat about was ah that Hopefully over time more people were involved with ORTRA with membership and that sort of thing because they're probably still, this probably highlights that there isn't heaps of trail runners that are members of ORTRA because possibly there would have been a few more nominations for trail if there was more members who were focused on trail.
00:55:26
Speaker
um So, yeah, I don't know how that happens with time. James keeps selling to me that it's $49 a year. You get access to race, coaching equipment and other discounts.
00:55:38
Speaker
Like why aren't people becoming members? And like every time he says that, I'm like, yeah, I don't know why. And I even had a look this time to see like there's heaps of discounts. It doesn't tell me which events. So maybe that's a barrier. Like it says you get event discounts, but it's not telling. I can't find easily what events I get discounts to.
00:55:57
Speaker
But there is heaps of brands that you get and stores that you get ah discounts to. So there's like Find Your Feet, Endurance Edge, T8, The Running Company. There's even there's Fractal, New Balance, Bix. There's heaps of...
00:56:13
Speaker
Physio, there's some physio, like if you're in the right place. LSKD, like there's there's heaps of discounts if you actually, you probably would make your $49 back. Everyone would.
00:56:25
Speaker
um So yeah, um maybe it's a... getting that message out to more people because that's only one part of being a member. But even just the discounts part is I think what James is saying is like why why not people why are people not signing up? Maybe they don't want the discounts or need them. I think there should be just a bit more than just discounts.
00:56:45
Speaker
um I think you know kind of making that commitment to become a member and pay the $49, I think it just has to be a bit bigger. like It's not about the discounts but more about you know, something a little bit bigger. And that's where I think they need to be a little bit more creative and find ways of being a bigger part of the communities of trail events, you know, offer something a bit more um than just discounts.
00:57:11
Speaker
um But yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I'm a member because I have to be a member to apply for a team. And Brody, I'm sure that you are on the same boat where I feel like, you know,
00:57:23
Speaker
They need to get to the point where people want to be members and want to be supporting them because they're doing something a bit bigger than just giving out discounts that were given to them by the brands that, you know, want to get some new customers maybe. um So, yeah, i think they need to be a bit more creative and and think about how they can be a bigger part of races in general, like, you know.
00:57:46
Speaker
you know, be a part of it somehow. I don't know how, but um I don't think that the discounts is what drives more people. Yeah, I mean, they have, like you said, there's probably 30 brands right now that you can get 10% or 15% discount for, which is really good and you will make your money back, but maybe that's not what people really care about.
00:58:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's, for me, it's like membership either has to, like like you said, it either has to, they have to be more, They have to, in the trail runner's mind, they have to be relevant and the trail runner has to want to support it or it's compulsory for them to be a member to run events. That's going to be the two ways forward, one or the other. And probably really like if we're going to set up, it if if they, because they can't actually grow to the point where they can be really effective without having members. So it's it's sort of chicken and it is a a bit of a hard situation to be in.
00:58:40
Speaker
um I think if you look at most other sports, there is some sort of membership required to participate, at least in some of the events. um and And even if it's not ah like it's not a super expensive membership, um I think working it into, like personally, I think that, and and this may be an unpopular opinion because people might want to not not want to have to be a member to do a race.
00:59:05
Speaker
And I think it's going be tricky to work that out with private race organisers. But like i and I see that as potentially one of the only ways actually forward in terms of formalizing trail running is more of a sport.
00:59:17
Speaker
At the moment, it's nearly more of a recreational pursuit. It is a sport, but like the way it's set up organizationally, it's more of a recreational pursuit than a formalized sport. So there's there's a lot of things for them to work through, but i don't again, I don't think it's an easy solution.
00:59:32
Speaker
um But i would I think in the meantime, this award potentially They need to open, they need to award it, like potentially award, if you awarded it to Lucy Bartholomew, even though she might not be a member, she came seventh at UTMB or whatever she was. like I think it was seventh. Is that the right number?
00:59:51
Speaker
I hope I'm not selling her short there. Anyway, top 10 at UTMB. She's got however many followers. They all go, oh, what's this Altra business? Like I think they've limited themselves here by saying, oh, we're only going to give it to Altra members because they're the ones that are part of our organization, whereas they could have used this war award as a way of advertising the sport. Well, we're not advertising the sport, advertising them as being an advocacy body.
01:00:20
Speaker
They're trying to be an organizational body for the sport, actually getting people to know who they are potentially actually giving it to someone who's not directly involved, so is not a member, may have been beneficial. Like they didn't have to force it, but like I would, I just, it just doesn't quite feel right not having an award, the best of the year, not being open to everyone.

Nutrition in Endurance Sports

01:00:46
Speaker
yeah Yeah, and I think it's the mentality. I feel like the mentality right now is, you know, become a member and then you get B, C, and D where it should be let's do this for the community, this, this, and this. And then in return, people will see that we're doing something good for them so they will become members.
01:01:06
Speaker
um So I think they just have to change that mentality a bit. And like you said, probably the the step number one, open the voting process to everybody get it, make it as big as possible, get the name out, you know, and they will need to do a few of those things till people go, well, they're doing a cool thing here. They're doing a cool thing there.
01:01:24
Speaker
I really want to support them here is $49 and, you know, great. no and And this one would have cost no additional money like to what they did. It wouldn't have cost them anything like some of the other things in terms of engaging with the trail running community will cost and maybe that's the barrier.
01:01:38
Speaker
But this one, like it would have run no differently if they'd opened it up broader it would have just been more people maybe nominated and maybe more people to vote on and more people voting and they could have you know even got email addresses that you know they could have not sold membership but so sent newsletters to and you know somebody gets three or four good newsletters a year and goes yeah this those guys are really cool i'm going to support them and become a member yeah all it had to be that's there's a really good point on the voting form like
01:02:10
Speaker
anyone can do the voting form it's posted on wherever like people get to it through instagram they fill in the voting form at the bottom there's a tick box they say i'd like to hear more about ultra and what they do for trail running click tick the box boom they've got an email address like i feel like it was an opportunity maybe they missed but those things are again hard to it's always been the way i think they've done it so it's hard to change practices immediately but yeah maybe we we see some movement on that in the future anyway That was not meant to be a negative on Ultra, but hopefully just some things to sort of see how we sort of move forward in that space.
01:02:44
Speaker
um The next piece was one that I asked James to put in because I've been seeing the rounds of this on my social media um and it was a recent a study released or a recent paper, scientific paper released um with Tim Noakes wasn't the sort of lead author, but he was part of the author group.
01:03:06
Speaker
And it was looking sort of ah a study that challenged like the current high carb or everyone saying like high carb is important and all the results saying high carb is important and all the evidence pointing towards high carb being important to them sort of flipping the script completely and saying low carb is enough and high carb is bad for these reasons based off like it It felt wrong to me and then I dug a little bit deeper and I also saw a really fantastic piece put together by some dieticians who sort of explained it a little in a little bit of detail and I can't remember.
01:03:46
Speaker
I'll try and find their names and we might pop it in the in the show notes, but it sort of just explained like some of the the issues with this piece of research. So the research itself looked at many like studies from the last year 100 years, I think it was like 100 years, but a really long time. But to be fair, any research that was older than 20 years is probably not that relevant.
01:04:09
Speaker
um So they were looking at and they they sort of looked into more of the pathways between like Yeah, they got really down into the physiology. and then that But then they sort of made some fairly broad claims that then became even more broad once it got to social media because people got on the broad claims and then sent sensationalised them even more.
01:04:30
Speaker
um So there was a lot of, I was seeing a lot of like stuff saying that you can you can you can race on 10 grams per hour and you'll be just as good as if you did high carb. um Not even just the 60 grams of carbs, which has been pretty synonymous for the last year.
01:04:46
Speaker
15 years and high carb is more like you're 90 and over 100 but they go all the way back to 10 like it just seemed like such a such a stark difference um but yeah the interesting things if you sort of dig into a little bit more the the research is a narrative review so they are looking at a bunch of different research but they don't have like a rigorous they don't have to include everything so a narrative review is where they sort of try and find all the information, but it's more heavily biased because they can sort of pick and choose what's included to some extent. Like they're not trying to do that, but just because of their biases, they might miss some things.
01:05:21
Speaker
Whereas a systematic review does like a a more... um a more in-depth ah search of the literature and sort of tries to pick up everything so nothing's missed.
01:05:34
Speaker
And then the other thing with a narrative review, it's sort of more like ah you look at the studies and and get the pull out different pizz of pieces from each one, whereas a system-america view often has a meta-analysis where they pull the data from all the studies together and show it in one big analysis.
01:05:49
Speaker
So it's Essentially, narrative reviews are fairly low, low weighting. And this, and they've also made some really bold claims based off what they found in their narrative review. So it was yeah it's just a bit troublesome. And I, I don't know, I find this stuff really damaging when, when the ultra low carb people come in and and start trying to push that because I've seen the negative side of that on on athletes in the past. So there was a whole heap of things like don't carb load, don't, you don't need to You can do fasted runs. You only need 10 grams per hour because that is enough for the brain. Like there was a lot of things that I think were potentially damaging for some athletes. For some people, they might be fine off that stuff. But I also think there's a subset of athletes where those sort of
01:06:35
Speaker
Those sort of claims possibly could be really damaging. um So yeah, I thought that was interesting news. I don't know if you guys saw it, but I was very happy to share the the little synthesis I saw by this dietician that I'll put in the show notes because it was nice to finally see someone going, hey, hey wait a minute, that's that's not quite a right. Yeah, and I think high carb has only really come up onto social media and and you know the big stage in the past few years. But I mean, I remember growing up and watching videos of Killian going up for like 16-hour trail runs with like one Snickers bar and drinks water from creeks and rivers and stuff like that. And that's what we did. That's what I did. I did so many 100K races on...
01:07:21
Speaker
100 grams of carbs for the whole race you know just for like you know pretty much going at about 10 grams an hour and it does work like you could survive but you got no energy recovery is just so slow you can train your body to to run 100k on 10 grams of carbs for sure but well some people can that's the thing like you probably can vlad and and kilian definitely came because he's amazingly fat adapted but But men in general are more fat adapted than women. So like it's it's even troublesome just between people like there is some people who like that actually wouldn't be able to do that um because of their their physiology. But like, yes, I agree that there's a portion of people that could do it, but maybe they actually wouldn't. like their performance is probably going to be better if they did it a different way. Oh, yeah. I mean, like I remember doing those sessions and training sessions on no carbs and I'll be sore for like a long time after it. And um once carbs came on board, i was like, this is so easy. Why didn't I know about this before?
01:08:25
Speaker
And it was pretty strange going from no carbs at all, doing long runs and just water um to actually going 80 100 grams of carbs an hour makes a massive massive difference yeah i think something to be aware of as well is that carbo loading used to do a depletion phase before you carbo loaded and they found that the mood of the athlete was very much affected and you could almost get it into a depressive phase so if you are reading the article just be aware that it might affect your mental state or your mood so Kind of go in with it with an open mind but aware of the consequences of what it can do.
01:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, there's like three days where you don't really have any carbs and then two days before the race you go really hard on carbs. yeah I remember that back in like 2015 and 16. um But yeah, I think all you need to do is just see how you feel on carbs and yeah, then that study doesn't really make much sense.
01:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think I was there a lot of people commenting and saying, how do you explain like the performances? Like, is it do we actually because there's a few people who are pushing this study and there's people in their comments being like, well, like which elite performers do you know that are doing low carb at the moment?
01:09:46
Speaker
And there's pretty like that. There's no I haven't seen an answer to that. Like, i I don't know that I think someone's one of the answers was ah Tom Evans did 80 grams of carb per hour and I'm like, well, 80 grams is a lot different to 10 grams. And he was also doing 100 miles. So it's a bit like he that's a long time. So, yes, maybe he doesn't need to do 120, but that's different to doing a four hour race. He's doing a 20 hour race. So like, yeah, even even their responses, I was like, well, that doesn't even make sense. They said Tom Evans doing 80 grams of carb is is low carb. But in the study, they said that was 10.
01:10:23
Speaker
So like it's, yeah, it's it's an interesting one. So I think as always with things on social media, be careful with what you're reading. And I think Zoe made a good point in that, like, remember that these things can can affect you as well. And if anyone out there's, yeah, having had trouble with this sort of stuff in the past, and I'm,
01:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, feel free. Like there's always those this mental health supports if you do need to reach out, if anything. Like we talked about now or even sort of stuff you've been seeing on social media has been hard to hard to see because I know for some people that that can be really hard when they have had some issues with with sort of eating and and and energy intake in the past. Like this sort of stuff can be triggering. Yeah.
01:11:03
Speaker
And I think we should also talk a little bit about the fact that high carb might not work for you right away. And I'm probably a person that it didn't work for right away. And I have to actually train my gut, train myself to be able to get to those numbers. So, you know, if you had one or two or three bad runs on high carb, just got to give it a bit more time. And, you know, it might take a bit longer, but you will feel better once you figure it all out and, You will have more energy. you are going to perform better. And most importantly for me is recover quicker. You are going to recover so much quicker. And I also find that I make better health choices after my run compared to before. So I've done so many runs, like so many four- and five-hour runs on just water. I'll get home.
01:11:50
Speaker
and I would eat anything like you know unhealthy, whatever, anything that I see, would just eat nonstop. When now having 100 grams of carbs an hour during my run, I finished my run and I'm a bit wise on what choices I make post run. So i'm actually eating technically healthier a lot healthier post-run than what I did before. And I don't have to like go super high on calories the next day because I'm still depleted from that day. um And I can, yeah, make way better choices on some healthier options then. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
01:12:22
Speaker
And i think I think the last thing to point out there is like you don't need to go high carb like you like if you're just out there to sort of enjoy yourself and and you're not change chasing that sort of top one percent of performance you still want to be able to perform at your best but you you're not too worried about sort of chasing every one percent of there is then there is that sort of middle gram which is still not 10 grams but more that 60 to 80 gram range is usually quite tolerable for most people um and you don't need to force it if you're just out there to have fun, but you want to feel decent enough doing it, then then that's a nice middle ground. And and and as we said, Tom Evans, he was doing 80 grams of carb because that works for him in that race. So there's also a bit of individual variety on what people can and can't do. so Yeah, 60 is really good. I think if you're on 60 on the right path, definitely.
01:13:15
Speaker
Cool. All right. Well, we might move on from that one. We have one last piece of news we might just run through quickly. And it was just a small article in on Ultra Sign Up website. And we'll put the link in the in the show notes if people want to go and have a look. But it was just sort of saying how there's about 10 to 12 different um Ultra Trail or Ultra Runner of the Year awards. And they forgot about the Peak Pursuits one. So they missed one as well.
01:13:40
Speaker
um But yeah, it was sort of like saying, well, who is the best if there is all these different ways of ranking people? Obviously there's, well, in the people might know, but there's ah in America there's the UROI, which has been going for a long time, but that's Ultra Runner of the Year, but that's only Ultras. And then FreeTrail does the Trail Runner of the Year, and they try and include both Ultra and Short.
01:14:03
Speaker
Then there's the ITRA rankings, like who was the highest ranked on ITRA for the year, who was the highest UTMB ranked for the year. So... There's a lot of chat about that. um Yeah, I don't know.
01:14:15
Speaker
Maybe there's a little bit too much. um It would be nice to, I think for me, the one thing I take away from this is that it would be nice to see some sort of ah merging or at least consolidation of ITRA and UTMB. Like that one's bugged me for a few years that there's two different ranking systems that seem to have similar but different scores.
01:14:34
Speaker
um And I know one's a private entity and one's a governing body, so it's a bit Maybe they can't, it's a bit tricky for them to sort of come together on that. But I think that might help this sort of confusion around, especially for someone coming into the sport going, well, what are all these different things? Like what is an intra ranking? Like how is that different to my UTMB index or or vice versa? So yeah, it would maybe to be good to see some consolidation there.
01:15:02
Speaker
And um yeah, maybe that can help with picking the trail and ultra run the year. But also like there's so many different distances and And performances that i know in Trail Runner of the Year that we're talking about ah how like it is is really hard to sort of pick the right the best performance because you've got, let's say, in ah the men, Remy Benet breaking the VK world record versus, I don't know, Jim Wormsley winning the World Trail Running Champs in the long distance. like Those two are really hard to compare. So, yeah, I feel like there's always going to be lots of different awards. um But I think for me that if the ranking systems could be a bit more
01:15:39
Speaker
merged, that would be quite useful. don't know you guys have any thoughts about that. Yeah, just less of it. Like I feel like that's why I was a bit surprised that Autra came with theirs so late in the year where like you get two or three weeks of nonstop of trail run of the year talk and then a week with nothing and then the Autra posts are coming out. um It did feel like there was a lot of it this year, a lot more than usual, um but ah which means like, you know, obviously our sport is growing, but yeah, maybe categorize it a bit. a bit easier or yeah it was it was a bit has a lot going on towards the end of the year with all those um trail running awards any thoughts Zoe on that one I generally don't actually know what
01:16:21
Speaker
any of the staff meetings to be honest with you. know You guys are talking gibberish. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know my own UTMB or ITRA school. My dad does.
01:16:33
Speaker
I don't. I just kind of. yeah yeah You've got your dad managing that for you. So we should we should get him on and get his opinion. and Oh, you should manage ours as well. yeah it's His statistics is absolutely amazing. I just don't understand any of it.
01:16:50
Speaker
I feel like we all, what's your dad's name? Steve's name. Yeah, I feel like we all need a Steve in our life to sort of keep on track of our data. Keep on track of the competitor's data. It's quite amazing. Yeah, exactly. He sounds like a good asset.
01:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, he looks at courses and looks looks at the terrain from Google Maps to getting an understanding of what the pace will be through that section as well. So he looks at everything.
01:17:18
Speaker
It's really cool. One of the big brands should get him on board is as tactics for the trail teams. That's how the strategist. Yeah. Nice. All right. Well, we might move on. ah We cover just one race and then we we might finish up. um Although I guess, yeah, James' question is related.
01:17:36
Speaker
We didn't have any questions for the week, but James had a question for us, but we we might touch on that as part of the results. Vlad, the Hong Kong 100 was on. Over the weekend, we did have Mikey Demiantis running. Unfortunately, he was a DNF. He picked up a bit of a hip niggle, which sort of got worse around 50k, and he couldn't quite get through it and decided to pull the pin, which seemed like a probably a good call. We're still 50k to go. He did make it through to 70k.
01:18:06
Speaker
um Did you catch any of the the racing there, Vlad? Yeah, i watched a little bit. There's a big expo there that we were involved in. I'm usually there, but this year going to Tarawera, I didn't want to make that trip to Hong Kong as well.
01:18:20
Speaker
um But yeah, that event is really big. It's a bit more, I guess, Chinese focus right now. It feels like a lot of the big... brands out of China very focused on that race and launching shoes kind of towards that race is almost like the Asian UTMB.
01:18:38
Speaker
Really cool to see how big that race has become. And yeah, it's part of Trail Majors, but even without Trail Majors, this race you know could stand on its own and still attract so many good runners.
01:18:52
Speaker
you know Obviously, it's a tough time of the year, January, for European runners, but we still saw a couple of European runners come across um to race, but it was very Chinese dominated.

Debate on Shared Victory in 100k Race

01:19:03
Speaker
um The one thing that yeah I think our question this week was a bit surprising is um the two female winners of the 100k event crossing the finish line holding hands together.
01:19:18
Speaker
um which I thought was a good question. I was a bit surprised to see it because being such a big race, you would think that, you know, going to go all out for that finish line. I understand people finishing together, you know, if you're 10th or 11th or 6th or 7th, but for the win, it felt a bit strange to see um two incredible athletes finishing together. yeah it was it's interesting to see like it's it's hard to it's like it's interesting because it's a hard thing to dislike because it's like it's such good so in one way it's like really good sportsmanship and like you can tell that they've i'm assuming they spent a decent part of the race running together um but on the other side like it's like the highest level of our sport and you also you sort of want to see a winner so yeah i don't know it's an interesting one i i i saw
01:20:09
Speaker
James's question there and it sort of made me uncomfortable just thinking about it because I was like, I don't know what the I don't know what I feel about this. I ah feel personally, sorry, sorry, before we go to you, I feel personally um as as a fan of the sport, I'm okay with it. I think it's okay.
01:20:27
Speaker
As an athlete, I was like, you know, I would have liked to see a sprint finish, especially for that first position. as As the brand, I'm thinking this is not great. I would rather see my athlete because they're both sponsored athletes.
01:20:41
Speaker
I would want to see my athlete go all out to the finish line. And even if they come second, That's going to get us more attention, a sprint finish than holding hands together. could almost bring some negative views, which I think there's a bit of a mixture of of post-race about it.
01:20:59
Speaker
And from me looking from the outside, I feel like the men's race got a lot more attention um and the women's one that should have got the same amount of attention, got a bit more of a negative feel to it because they finished together. um But yeah what do you think, Zoe?
01:21:14
Speaker
I think it's a sweet moment, but probably one of those things that's at the wrong time to do because, you know, then you have also the aftermath of everybody who stays to watch that finish.
01:21:27
Speaker
Like what is the consequence of that? And then you've got the race director, which I'm sure there was, I don't know much about the race itself, but the race director would have put a ton of time, the volunteers would have put in ton of time for this big race.
01:21:40
Speaker
And then you have the winner, which now has to split between prize money. They probably don't have two winning trophies. So um I think it could have been this amazing, like excitable moment on that finish line for the spectators who stayed.
01:21:55
Speaker
And then maybe it was just downplayed a little bit because they finished together. And so it kind of comes to that question, is it acceptable at that level? Yeah. A sprint finish at the end of 100k race would have got a lot of attention, which would have been really good for the sport. So, yeah, it's a bit of a shame that they didn't just go all that. And that's a downhill finish as well. Like you go from the highest point of Hong Kong from Taimoshan all the way down. So you do have like four or five K of very fast road towards that finish line. So it could have been like super exciting, you know, race footage and maybe a sprint finish as well. But yeah.
01:22:34
Speaker
maybe next year yeah it's an interesting one because I I think like comparison is like um Matt Crean and Andrew um Gaskell finishing together at the world champs but they were like whatever what place were they maybe like 70th 80th they'd spent the both day battling together or battling apart battling together and they'd sort of found themselves at the finish line sort of together and they're like, well, there's no point us out sprinting each other. Like, is there? Like, let's just like jog across together.
01:23:06
Speaker
um Like, I think that's different in this case because this one's like racing for that that first prize. And like you said, you've got all those people there watching. I hadn't even really thought of it from the sponsor side of things, Vlad, but I imagine the sponsors, I don't know how you'd react to that because like surely you prefer to see you yourself in front there. don't know.
01:23:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that i mean Veronica is based in Hong Kong, but still they would have spent a bit of money. That would have been a main goal race for both of those athletes. And um i think as a sponsor, you just want to see your athlete just give it their all there. And I also think that it's fine if it's, you know, even even for even for fourth and fifth place, i don't I think that's okay. And sponsors might see it as okay.
01:23:52
Speaker
But for first place, that's where I feel like, You know, that's probably the time where you're just going to go all out and leave like nothing behind. um Definitely. I'll quickly shoot through the results just so we cover them. So in the race we're talking about there was the 100k in the women. First, equal first, Veronica Leng and Huao Ha from Vietnam. Veronica's from Slovakia but she lives in Hong Kong.
01:24:17
Speaker
And then third place was Jingxi from China. um And then in the males, you were sort of saying bit of a Chinese dominance there. um Gui Duy Quinn, sorry, I'm going to maybe not get all these 100% right. dofo Guang Fu Meng and Guomindeng, that was the first three, ah all from China. And then, yeah, Dakota Jones from the US just outside and John Ray Anifa from Philippines in in fifth there. We sort of know that know that name. the
01:24:48
Speaker
um in the fifty k ah The winner of the men's race was Yukung Wang and second was Anton Gustafsson from Sweden and third place from China, Guo Shi. And in the women's ah top two Chinese, Uzumi Huang and yang Yan Yang and then Esther Schillag was third place. She's from Hungary.
01:25:21
Speaker
Does Esther live in ah Hong Kong? Yeah. And Esther was over in at Buffalo Stampede last year. That's when we saw her on Australian soil. Very good runner. I don't know what she's going to be up to this year, but looks like a strong start. And all those races are pretty close.
01:25:41
Speaker
So really competitive fields. And I think like also like, um you know, a lot of those Chinese runners are very, very good runners. A lot of them have, you know, two 15s marathon times and around those kind of um times. But a lot of them just race in China because they have...

Dominance of Chinese Runners and Upcoming Championships

01:26:00
Speaker
the local races with really big big prize money. um So a lot of the runners we don't really know about. Hong Kong is probably the one race that they do come up to only because it's big for the sponsors. um But yeah, a lot of those really talented runners don't really race too much outside of China.
01:26:18
Speaker
um But they're very, very good runners, especially like, you know, on those specific trails that parts of China and and obviously Hong Kong, um a lot of stairs, a lot of concrete, but then also some technical sections. But probably the gradient is just not as steep as the Alps, for example, or the Pyrenees.
01:26:37
Speaker
and And it just got into my head there when you're talking about the sort of lots of stairs, lots of concrete. um the asia pacific champs at the end of the year in china would you do you reckon like when it was in korea we didn't see a lot of these sort of big chinese names or really there wasn't many of them anyway whereas like the depth of these sorts of races or even in the chiang mai utmb race as well like there seems like there's lots and lots of good chinese athletes do you think they'll send a really strong team to the asia pacifics and try and win it because like you think that they could
01:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, i feel like being in China, they would. I think they don't really have like a proper governing body, but being like in Asia Pacific championships, it's probably a little bit more flexible. And I think that maybe we're not going to see like the top, top Chinese runners, but probably like the second tier ones, which are still very, very good. And I think they're going to win.
01:27:29
Speaker
um you know most of the most of the races in this one they've got such great depth and like you said they're good on this sort of Hong Kong terrain where there's lots of steps and and a bit of cement and it looks like that's what the Asia-Pacific course will be a lot of as well yeah exactly so i I feel like you know still will will do well as Australia there but um yeah this time around I think that China is going to take most of the top spots All right, well, that ah brings the episode to the

Upcoming Races and Event Management

01:27:57
Speaker
end for us. So we've got a few races coming up next weekend, couple up in Queensland.
01:28:03
Speaker
Are you doing anything, Zoe, or are you resting up now to the Tarawara? Are you doing one of these Queensland races? I am. So one of our training, I guess it's a part of our training philosophy is that it's good to get a hit-out race before your major race. So I'll be doing the Beeware at night ten k Cool.
01:28:24
Speaker
Fantastic. And it won't be like racing, racing, but a good hit out. Yeah, cool. And that's ah that's like Glass House Mountains, is it? But like, is that sort of fire road type stuff? ah Yeah, very much so fire road.
01:28:37
Speaker
There's a little bit of like a couple of creek crossings that have been washed out, but I think the majority of it's pretty much fire road. They're pretty good. Good training, a good hit out for Tarawarra, it sounds like. Yeah, basically.
01:28:51
Speaker
Fantastic. And then there's another race out there. I think you've done a few of these ones. I think I've seen in the past, the Southeast Queensland Trail Series round five at Bunyaville. Is it you've done some of those ones in the past?
01:29:02
Speaker
I have done SEQ. I don't know which s SEQ what races I've actually done. I've just turned up. I think I've done Nunnum Bas. I don't think I've done Bunyaville. Yeah, okay, nice. So that's also up on in Queensland. In Perth, we have one of the Perth Trail Summer Series at Swiss Murdy. And then down in Victoria, we have the Kilcunda Running Festival, which is...
01:29:26
Speaker
one of the new or rebranded running wild races, which is now part of sort of single tracks offering. So they're running those races. So that'll be the first one this year. And there's probably been, I don't know, I don't know if it's just because I'm in Victoria, but I've definitely seen a lot more about that race this year with single tracks sort of taking over.
01:29:46
Speaker
it'll be interesting to see how that one goes because these running wild races have in the past been a bit more of sort of like low key community sort of like ah not too sort of over commercialized type races. So it'll be interesting to see how the the blend of that and single track coming to it will will sort of pan out. Mount Buller Skyrun last year in December was one of theirs as well, but that was the first one. So this is the yeah the next one. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

Closing Remarks and Well Wishes

01:30:17
Speaker
All right, well, that brings us all to the end. Happy training next week. Zoe, you've got the race on. Anything else on? No, if that's about it. Uni doesn't start till after Tarawera. We get back and then uni's the next day, it should be fun. Nice and good recovery.
01:30:35
Speaker
Fantastic. And Vlad, you got a normal week of training and then a bit of a taper down to Tarawera. And then Tarawera and then the next day work starts again. Yeah, beauty.
01:30:47
Speaker
Look at that. You're busy, busy, busy. Fantastic. Right. Well, thanks so much Zoe for joining us. It was great to sort of hear and like Vlad said, very refreshing to hear your take when me and Vlad probably both very data driven. um And I think we can all probably take something away from your approach and how you how you how you're going at the moment. So yeah, good luck at Tower. I hope you run really well and hope you catch, nah, hope you don't catch Vlad. Hope Vlad has a great run as well.
01:31:19
Speaker
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I hope Vlad has a great run too. Hope you don't see him. Yeah, that's right. Fantastic. All right. See you guys.
01:31:30
Speaker
See you guys.