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Trail To South Korea Episode 1!
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Welcome to the first Peak Pursuits Podcast special series!
Follow Sarah Ludowici, Charlie Hamilton and Mikey Dimuantes in their lead up to the inaugural Asia Pacific Trail Running Championships in South Korea this October.
In this first episode you'll be introduced to these three powerhouses of Australian trail running and hear how their year so far has panned out.
Listen in to future episodes to get break downs of their training weeks, hear about their nutrition and gear planning, how they navigate the travel, and so much more!
Thanks for listening!
Sarah: @sarahludo
Charlie: @cowboyhamilton
Mikey: @mikey_dimuantes
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/moire/new-life
License code: VJ9EPZM2AQUSWRXL
Transcript
00:00:37
Speaker
little a cappella section. I hope Simone keeps that bit. We'll get her to keep that bit in. A little off takes. Alright, now I have to compose myself to do the intro.
00:00:50
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this special episode or this special series of the peak pursuits podcast. um I'm Brody, one of the regular hosts. And today we're bringing you something really special and something that we are super excited about. um And what we're doing is a little bonus series.
00:01:09
Speaker
that we're calling Road to South of Korea. And we have some of the biggest names in trail running in Australia, some of the heavy hitters on with us today. And they're going to be with us for the next five weeks. um So without further ado, we have Sarah Little Witchy up in Broome. How are you going Sarah? Great, hot and good to be here. as and Thanks for joining.
00:01:34
Speaker
And then we have our two, the two capital cowboys as they like to call themselves. Leslie Hamilton. Maybe Charlie does, but Charlie Hamilton and, and Mikey Demi-Mantis. How are we going? Oh, I'm, I'm glad to be here. It's a pleasure to be here with the heaviest hitter in a Australian trial running Saraluda Wiki. And moodo yeah, love what Peak Pursuits have been doing. Love what Peak Pursuits have been doing. So stoked to be part of it.
00:02:04
Speaker
I'm very excited to Brody. I'm just marinating some tofu for tonight. But very excited to be here. Fantastic. Multitasking, we like it. Beautiful. All right, well, for those who don't know, I guess you should, but i'll I will give a little bit of a recap of who they are and and then what they're gonna be doing in Korea. So we'll start with Sarah. Sarah is a very accomplished ultra runner. ah Sarah, would you do you you say you do mostly longer stuff? I say you've done a bit of a mix, but yeah yeah your best stuff is the long stuff, is that right?
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, the longer the better, but no more than really a hundred miles just yet. But obviously, yeah, the short stuff's good for training. ah But yeah, i love the long I love the long stuff going nice and slow. Beauty. So just just a hundred miles, nothing nothing too long, just a hundred miles. Sarah's had some amazing results over the last few years. In 2022, she was first at the Cozy Mylar um in its inaugural year. um And she also, in that same year, she had a really good race at the Thailand World Champs in the long trail, I think, coming 35th. She's had a smattering of other results over the last few years that have all been very impressive. She's won KMR, she's won Buffalo, Stampede, um a lot of ah lot of really impressive results.
00:03:34
Speaker
and this year, or in a few weeks time, taking on the long trail in South Korea, is that right? No actually, I'm actually doing the short trail. Short trail, ah we we cut that yeah in a few times. I know you can cut that. No, that's, that's you come across as under-researched bro, you can't cut that.
00:03:58
Speaker
No, we always make ourselves look good.
00:04:03
Speaker
so sarah sarah sarah While Sarah has run really long races, she is actually going to be dropping down and running the short trail at in South Korea. Even though it's still quite long, it's not going to be as long as the normal races. Sarah, what's the reasoning behind that? where Why are we dropping down to the short trail?
00:04:25
Speaker
I really wanted to do the Grampians Peak Trail 100 miles and it's yeah, it's not a big enough gap to really warrant a long course and I wanted to go and participate in the event and yeah, 40k was a nice sort of, yeah, it fits quite nicely as sort of I guess a, ah yeah, enough time to recover and and go again for the 100 miles later in November.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, fantastic. Great. Cool. Well, we might circle back in um in a little bit and come back to that a little bit more. um But we'll introduce other other two guests as well. So we've got ah Charlie Hamilton, who is living in Canberra.
00:05:06
Speaker
um I think I forgot to mention that Sarah's running for ASICs, Charlie's also running for ASICs and so is Mikey, so we've got the ASICs crew on with us. Charlie's had a big, I would say a big sort of like 18 months or maybe just this year some huge results um based off some impressive routes before that, but really come into his stride this year. He had a really good run, Tawaera coming second, had a pretty crazy run at Buffalo, but unfortunately went, made a little bit of a course error and and and and took in a bit of distance, extra distance. So he came in second there, but absolutely blasted the end of that course and then really showed
00:05:51
Speaker
what he's capable of at at UTA this year, getting it a really impressive win and going under four hours. So Charlie's had a really good year. He's running short trail in Korea. You're excited for it, Charlie. you're gonna You're going to step it up again. We're going one more.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. um I'm pretty excited by this Korea race, actually. I think it'll be super competitive um and just keen to see how I go in in kind of a different, like, area. You know, like, South Korea is very different to where I raced before. It'll be a different culture. It'll be a different kind of trail. So I'm pretty keen to see how it goes.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, cool. Awesome. Um, and then that leaves our last, uh, guest, uh, Mikey. Now I'm always feel like I'm going to say your last name wrong. Yeah. dmi Dimi, dimi aunties. How do you say it? Right. Marky. I'll get it. I'll get it right once. Can you try again?
00:06:46
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you gotta give me a tip of which way to go. Which bit did I get wrong? Um, it's, it's dimu aunties.
00:06:56
Speaker
Oh, it was pretty close. Give me your answers. that's yeah so Sorry for the little side side note there everyone, but um Mikey's also living in Canberra now. Are you from WA Mikey? I know you've moved to Canberra recently. um Is that that you're a WA born or? No, initially I was born in Port Macquarie and then actually did three years of uni in Canberra, but just spent a year in WA or a year and like the year and a half over COVID there. Cause that's when my wife lived with her family for a bit over COVID. Okay. So an East coaster back in, back in Canberra again. yeahp Um, Mike has had also a really big year.
00:07:41
Speaker
this year as well as some impressive overseas results over the last few years. um But I guess more recently this year, a big win at UTA 100. Super impressive and run there, really fast. um We had him on the podcast after that, so you can go back and have a listen. um And also some really impressive results over other distances this year as well. Just got the win at Hounslow.
00:08:06
Speaker
um and I think also the win at Buffalo 20, so a lot of range on Mikey, but I'd say the longer distances are your bread and butter, is that right? And you're running the long trail in Korea? Yeah, yep, I think so. um Yeah, I think I'm becoming more comfortable racing short, but I definitely love the longer distances, so yeah, doing the long in Korea.
00:08:29
Speaker
Fantastic, cool. So that's a ah three guests that you're gonna hear from a lot over the next ah five weeks. We'll hear a lot more about their training, ah their specific preparations for career, what they've looked at and prepared for, they checked out.
00:08:45
Speaker
Are they looking at the course what what sort of gear are they gonna use what nutrition that sort of stuff so we're gonna get into the nitty-gritty um this episode we're sort of just gonna cover where everyone's been so far this year and and then what made them really want to run the course that they're running at Korea and set up set it up a little bit and then we'll get into more of the details over the coming weeks. um So I guess on that note, Sarah, you said you sort of ascertained a little bit before you're you're running the GPT miler in November and using this as you really wanted to sort of participate in in this competition still. So you thought the short trail was a good option. What's what made you really want to go and go to Korea and be a part of this competition?
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, well, I've been lucky enough to sort of yeah represent Australia in a few of the world champs. And in all honesty, I think they're some of the best events purely because of the team element. um Yeah, I guess you run you can run a lot in the trail running world, but it's so nice to go and compete not just as a solo, but as a team. And yeah, I've made some of like you know my greatest friends through going and meeting them um over at the the trail champs. And yeah, I just love ah love that element.
00:10:07
Speaker
yeah bringing together people from all different walks of life and i you know you get absorbed with the trail running world for like a couple of weeks and and then you sort of go back to your normal life and you forget about it all but it's nice to sort of throw yourself into it and hear what other people do and and see what other people do and then yeah I guess you get the opportunity to be against the best in the world, which is is nice to sort of, you know, continue to challenge yourself and push yourself against others. And then I would I love the opportunity to see awesome places in the world, you know, I've traveled to places that I probably would never think to go to.
00:10:45
Speaker
like Austria for example, I thoroughly enjoyed, ah you know, I went over last time, I went over for a couple weeks before and lived in the mountains and would just take myself hiking up mountains every day and and running on the course and getting to do that with like just different flavors of a different culture and trying to figure out how to get a coffee in German and all of that sort of stuff that you get from traveling the world I love. ah So yeah, I guess that's that's the big push to being a part of these events and I guess the only other thing would be, yeah, I think it's important that, you know, as the sport is growing, we, you know, support these sorts of um events to, and yeah, attract the most competitive and best people in the world and bring them all together. And I see that, yeah, part of me participating is, is to to grow that and get other people interested. So more people apply. um Yeah. So I think that's it.
00:11:41
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point. And I think like we see in trail running in the world that some of the private events or we can think of them as private inside the YouTube event says so some of them are seen as the biggest events in the world. And it would be cool to see the world champs is the biggest because it may be not be seen as the biggest at the moment. And I think these sorts of competitions will help towards that and Australia is doing a really good job in like the team that we're sending to Korea is awesome. We're sending some of our very best runners including you three. So it's awesome that we're doing our bit to contribute to that because everyone needs to, like you said, everyone, the more of the very best or the best in the nations that are going to these competitions, the more that the profile of those competitions will be
00:12:30
Speaker
increased and it will only sort of push us all along. So yeah, no, that's awesome. Really cool. And how's your Korean going for ordering a coffee? did yeah I haven't practiced yet, but I will learn.
00:12:48
Speaker
yeah Beauty, beauty. And um you said that you for Austria you went over a couple of weeks beforehand. Is your plan to sort of head over to Korea for a little bit beforehand or um how's it how that all shaping up?
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'll get about two weeks over there. I think it's probably the longest of of most people that are traveling. um I guess, you know, my reasoning for spending some time over there is the room is flat and there's no mountains.
00:13:19
Speaker
and So it can be really tricky to train and so I often try to travel you know either to somewhere like Perth or or go over in enough time to at least get some training runs over there on the course um and also just conditioning condition the body and the mind a little bit better for for the things that I don't get to.
00:13:40
Speaker
train over here day-to-day. So there's obviously a bit of a risk in terms of going over and then doing too much too soon. But I think I did learn that probably the hard way in Austria. I remember the first, um I sort of always time it so I have at least like one sort of final long run and I went and did it and I never kept my quads after running down those hills when I haven't run down a hill in in um a couple of months really ah were destroyed and then I think that sort of played up in the race in terms of my ITB so I think I've sort of learnt that yeah it's sort of a really fine line but I feel confident especially with recently having done Hounslow that yeah my body is is going to be able to handle that and just yeah being sensible when I get over there.
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah, cool. Awesome. And I think it'd be nice to dive into that a little bit more in future episodes, like how you prepared or how you're preparing for the race physically at home, because that's always quite tricky when you live somewhere that's quite different to where the race is. um But more so ah more generally over the like this year, has your training and racing been geared up for this and and the Mylar? How have you been structuring your training and your racing towards these sort of big goals, I guess, at the end of the year?
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think this year was a bit of an interesting one for me. I, uh, last year I sort of had a sort of a string of DNFs, um, like Austria and UTMB and then as a result sort of threw in the COSIOSCO miler at the end of the year. And then since then didn't really get much of a break and sort of went COSI miler, Tarabia 100 and then UTA 100, which are all pretty quick turnarounds. Like there's about eight,
00:15:27
Speaker
eight or ten to ten weeks in between each so not really too much time to get ah full rest and so I actually think I i kind of mentally um burnt myself out a little bit physically I felt alright but mentally I just didn't have it any sort of um fight in me and so yeah actually took a break in the middle of the year after UTA um and so yeah this is sort of an interesting second half of the year following a break in the middle of the year and then two shorter races so Yeah, just building up from that break in the middle of the year to sort of a regular program and focusing on a bit more on speed. um That's been the main aim and and then building up those um those overall miles in the week. But yeah, it's sort of really in Broome, just a matter of doing the best you can with what you've but you've got.
00:16:20
Speaker
um Yeah. So I think you can't, you don't really actually have the luxury of being all too specific here. ah Like there's not really technical trails. There's a bit of rock hopping, which, you know, a hundred meters or so. So like I'll run up and along those or up and down sand dunes, but for the most part, yeah, it's just really doing the best you can with, with what's available. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. um Yeah. Well, that'll be, it'll be interesting to see how it goes and
00:16:52
Speaker
And it sounds like um I'm hoping that, um and I think it's probably likely that hopefully you absorb all that racing that you did earlier in the year with that little break and and then building up through these two shorter races. um Hopefully GPT is really good, but hopefully also the two, it looks like Hounslow was a good stepping stone and and hopefully Korea is another strong race for you. um How did you feel Hounslow went sort of doing that shorter race?
00:17:20
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was actually a really good confidence boost for me. I think, yeah, it's easy to sort of tell yourself that you don't have, um you know, the best training ground and and sort of psych yourself out in a little bit. But, um you know, even though, yeah, I've been in Broome for three years, I've essentially managed all of my events for three years, despite not having access to all that stuff regularly. so Yeah, i was it was a really good confidence boost coming back after that sort of string of long races where I didn't feel, um yeah, I guess amazing. um So yeah, i I really enjoyed it and I found my strengths still lie in descending and steep uphills, even though I don't have them here and actually struggled more on the runnable hills. So I think, yeah, just,
00:18:13
Speaker
just a reminder of where where i'm where I'm strong and where I need to continue to to work at and improve. But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the shortness of it. You know, just even something as simple as not having to calculate as much nutrition for a whole day of running versus, you know, it's only six hours. You're like, yahoo. So...
00:18:37
Speaker
Yeah, definitely feel happy off the back of Hounslow to go into this and just trust, trust myself and trust the process. Ludo, I thought you had an unbelievable run at Hounslow. You like how much you caught up in the second half of that race, especially considering you don't have any of those kinds of trails around you. That was unbelievable. You came flying back. You nearly got back onto the podium. It was unbelievable.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, Charlie. It was really great to see you out on the course. Like that definitely sort of just was the nudge I needed to remind myself that I'm still there. I'm still in it and just got to keep running my own race. And yeah, I definitely um sort of just shocked myself a little bit in the second half. I i think there's also yeah areas to always improve. um But yeah, it was yeah great to be in the mix of things and so close. And um yeah, it was good fun out there.
00:19:36
Speaker
Awesome. And that's good that's going to be a good confidence booster headed headed towards South Korea um for sure.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And um we you write it Kelly ah Angel, she was also racing in Hounslow. And is it right that she's she's also headed to Korea? um She doing the long trail or the short trail there?
00:20:00
Speaker
Kelly's doing the long, um but Jess is doing the short. So yeah, we've got the chance to run against, yeah, yeah. That counts though, yeah. Yeah, cool. So it'd be good to, yeah, good to be on the team with those those awesome women again. And although Kelly's doing a bit longer and it'd be good to race with Jess.
00:20:19
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's super exciting and, and yeah, I'm really excited to see how, how you all go, but, um, see how these final weeks of prep go and, and all the best with that. But we'll, we'll touch on that more, I guess in the future weeks. Um, Mikey, Charlie, you got any more questions for Sarah before I. We dive into you guys.
00:20:42
Speaker
Do you have anything like up in room for your training? Is there anything state like what's yeah. Is there anything you can do? There is a.
00:20:53
Speaker
a golf club ramp. So when I first saw it, I was like, that's that's not a hill. But it is the hill. There's that there are sand dunes. Yeah, so I guess like all the natural sand dunes are preserved on the beach. So yeah, you can go up and down the sand dunes. There's one set of stairs that will go up the sand dunes. And so that's pretty steep, like, you know, usually an hour I'll run up and down that and I only get about actually only get about six K's in the hour and a reasonable amount of vert on on the stairs. But um the golf club ramp, for example, if I run and down that, you know, like 25, 26 times, I'll get like
00:21:37
Speaker
maybe 300 metres of elevation. So that is it. Ludo, you're going to love it when you come to Canberra and you get 300 metres of elevation without even trying on an easy run. You're going to be a different run. Yeah, I know. I'm um'm excited. I can't wait to not just run up and down a hill to get 300 metres. Do you do much strength, Ludo, to supplement that when you're because you do so much flat running. Do you do much strength training? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I try to do about two sort of strength sessions a week and then two Pilates type yeah sessions a week. Um, that's the aim. I don't really hit that Pilates is the first thing to go, but yeah, strength training is, is being pretty consistent. I probably started strength training before I started running. So yeah, I've got, you know, 15, 20 years of strength training, yeah um, in me really. Yeah.
00:22:35
Speaker
I reckon that would go a long way to how you're able to run so well in the mountains despite living in Broome, I think. Absolutely. And i I think that's why I love the steep stuff because, you know, my my quads are strong and can handle the descents. And then, you know, when I'm high power hiking up a mountain, yes, it's yeah, using a lot more strength endurance than it is. Yeah, everything else. So sure yeah, I think that really that really helps. Yeah. Nice.
00:23:04
Speaker
All right, well, thank you, ah Sarah. Thanks for that overview. It was very interesting sort of here where you've been so far this year and and where you're headed next. Charlie, we might go to you next. um The last two years, you've headed over to Europe to do some some big racing and and done some various races over there. um Whereas this year you've sort of stayed at home and and and sort of raced a bit more domestically and and and now you're headed to Korea. What was the what was sort the rationale behind that thinking and and and and why why did you choose? I'm sort of guessing that is is Korea sort of one of your big races, your your big race for the year or what's the
00:23:47
Speaker
What's the overall year look like in your head? i Honestly, I didn't really know about ah know about Korea until probably maybe four months ago, five months ago. um The reason I didn't go to Europe again this year is Like ah after racing there a couple times I just realize how good everyone is. um like People are just so fast and they're so strong and I kind of saw the level that I needed to be at to be able to race there and I wasn't quite there so I just kind of decided to spend twelve months basically putting my head down and doing as good a training as I can.
00:24:26
Speaker
so that when I do go back to Europe, you know, next year and the year after, hopefully I'm I'm strong enough. um When Korea came up, I was kind of looking for a race towards the end of the year anyway. And I just saw, I don't know, just really, it really excited me. And I knew that being part of the team, like the Australian short course Runners in particular for that, you know that marathon to 50k distance I think we've got some really strong runners and I was really excited about racing as a team over there um and I knew how many people were keen on that and Yeah, I was Really happy to to to get on the team for for the race like I there was a time there where I didn't actually think I would my my intra indexes is
00:25:17
Speaker
pretty low so I didn't actually think I would get on the team. um But now seeing the team we have and and seeing some of the, to be frank, unbelievable runners that weren't selected, um it it really excites me. It means a lot. like i' I'm ready to go and and to race really hard just knowing like how strong Australia's team is. Like we've got Blake Turner, Billy Curtis and Vlad Axel are three serious runners. Um, and I think I haven't spoken to them, but I think the goal for us in the team category should be to try and podium or win overall. Like, which would be awesome. Um, a pretty big ask, but I think that'd be a really cool thing for a Australian trial running. Definitely. Yeah. No, I think, um,
00:26:08
Speaker
That's really cool to hear he sort of ah you feel about how feel about the racing and and whatnot. But I would ah would echo that like the team in Short Trail, men particularly, the team in general is really, I was really surprised that that many of that very best put their hand up and said, I wanna go. So that that was, we're not surprised, but more like happy to see it happen. um But yeah, I think that is ah with those other guys running hard and they all seem fairly dialed in for,
00:26:36
Speaker
South Korea as well. I think you guys have a really good chance to to perform really well in that team competition. So that's super exciting. If we talk a little bit more about how you're sort of working towards Korea, do you want to go over a little bit of how you have then, like I guess you only found out four or five months ago, but how have you structured your training and racing since then to sort of work towards Korea?
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah, well, I didn't have any races planned. So, Mikey and I, ah anyone who's listening to this that doesn't know Mikey and I pretty much probably do four to five out of seven runs a week together. um And we just kind of but had a look at the course, saw the demands, like saw how steep it was, um and then just started doing as much of that as we can. um After about,
00:27:30
Speaker
probably two months of good running. I had a little foot niggle. I was meant to run the short race at Hounslow, which the 17K, but I just had this spring ligament issue that basically put me out. It wasn't bad. I maybe only didn't run for four or five days. I was still able to get some good cycling in in the meantime. But and then just kind of managed to wind it back up. And as of now, I'm back training as normal. And just given how so how steep this race is, that's kind of been the focus is
00:28:04
Speaker
just running up steep hills. I don't know if, Ludo, you might not have heard this, but um I spoke to some South Korean law enforcement recently, and um they actually said it was illegal to hike over in South Korea. So basically, I'm forcing myself to just, you gotta run everything. I mean, it's illegal to hike there, so. all right And everyone, yeah, anyone else running should should be aware of that as well. <unk> It's bad news.
00:28:33
Speaker
No hiking. I got it. Flying. No. Just fly up there. Yeah. Well, you just got to run. I mean, flying. I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure that's probably not kosher in the rules of the of the book. But. um Yeah, just just running up steep stuff is pretty much all we've been doing as much as we can. Yeah, nice. What's the, um ah of the climbs and whatnot, like the main climbs? I can't say I've looked at the career course a heap. What's the percentages of the climb? Like are they long grinding climbs or more like this there's really steep shorter climbs? Like what's it what's it look like?
00:29:09
Speaker
Oh, they're pretty brutal. There's like the first climb climbs about ah six or seven K long, but you climb about eight or 900 meters and there's some really steep sections. And the final climb has a 50% section for what looks like 500 meters, but that's not finished. Like you climb, you climb about 800 meters and I think three K or three and a half K and that's to finish the race. So it's like, it's really steep.
00:29:39
Speaker
Wow. Are people doing polls? Is this a polls things for 40K or like run is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're not allowed to hide. So if you can run with polls Sarah, then you're sweet.
00:29:54
Speaker
so I don't know, Mikey, have you considered using poles? Yours is, I mean, a bit longer, so a bit slightly different demands, but were you poles for the 80K? I've considered it. I probably won't, actually. But ah if I do, I'll just pick them up for the last climb, because I'm pretty sure you can do that in the rule book, which is a little ah closely guarded secret. yeah um Yeah. You can pick up and drop off poles.
00:30:21
Speaker
But I mean, you guys only have one crude aid station, right? Yeah, so I think... I think if you're used to using... Yeah, so you could pick them up at the last aid station if you wanted, Sarah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I personally have never picked up a poll in my life, so I couldn't...
00:30:38
Speaker
I couldn't tell you what to do. All right. So we'll we might tackle the polls versus no polls again. I'm sure we'll come back to that in future. um And maybe I guess as we get as you as you get over to Korea and maybe Ludo will be able to give you some advice on what it looks like and whether or not polls are actually going to be possible or not.
00:30:59
Speaker
um I guess it depends maybe a little bit how technical it is as well in terms of if you can actually get the poles onto the ground. Is it is it supposed to be a bit rocky or is it scary? It's a bit... It's a bit bullish.
00:31:11
Speaker
It looks a little bit, it looks, there's technical in some sections, but it looks like a lot of stairs. Like I'm pretty sure most of the climbing is stairs. And like footpaths, like, like concrete footpaths on top of the mountains kind of thing. Oh really? Yeah, is what I'm saying. I mean, that just might be the access points that they've got footage of. So you never kind of know, but. Yeah, cool.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Oh, well, there's a lot of it. I think it'll be interesting when someone actually gets on the ground and and we'll be able to, um, when the first people get there, I'm sure we'll get a few surprises thrown, thrown our way of the, um, of what's going on. I've raced in Asia a little bit and orienteering and it's always like pretty crazy. So I'm sure there'll be some craziness thrown at you guys. Yeah. I think Billy gets in earlier. So maybe we get him in as a foreign correspondent to walk us through the course. If he gets to say it.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good idea. Awesome. Cool. All right. Well, that brings us to our final guest. He's been sitting patiently waiting for this, Mikey. Mikey, you've had ah You've been doing a bit of a variety of racing this year um and you're doing the long course, which is probably your preferred event. What have you, have you structured your season towards this race or is this, is this one of the big goals once you found out about Asia Pacific? How are you feeling about the actual race? Um, yeah, I think I was similar to Charlie. I think once we found out that there was going to be a championship and that we could go to it, it was exciting and we were both like,
00:32:43
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's pretty, it's kind of rare for us to get a genuine, um, championship that feels like it's got a lot of momentum behind it. So I think it'll be, it'll be cool. Um, but yeah, yeah. So once I found out about it, I was like pretty all in on the long course and thought Hounslow was a kind of perfect leading race. Probably had similar attributes to being like stairs and steep and wasn't too long. So I would have time to recover and stuff. So I kind of use that as a, as a leading race.
00:33:12
Speaker
to do in the lead into the long. Yeah, cool. And you were in Korea earlier in the year. I don't think you would have known about the about the race then. But um is is it that experience when you went to Korea? Did that make you really want to go back to Korea? Like, did you enjoy Korea earlier in the year? Oh, yeah. Like, the I'm not sure how similar it's going to be to the stuff outside of Seoul. But so honestly, the running that we did in Bukhansan was some of the nicest running I've done. Anyway, it's like really the trail builders in South Korea, ah particularly in Bukhansan are just like amazing. Like there's these huge heavy boulders, lots of stairs, but really clear, like beautiful paths that just kind of weave through. um And like a mixture of granite and then those kind of classic conifer-y trees that kind of burst through the peaks. It's like very, very beautiful. And yeah, I had ah like visiting South Korea was awesome. So I'm keen to go back
00:34:09
Speaker
there. I think we're going to spend China. I'm going to spend some time in Seoul before we go. So we'll go back into Bukhansan for our last couple of of um runs and go and sample the local kimchi and whatnot, and then head on down. Fantastic.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, nice, cool. And your training, Charlie was sort of saying that you guys do a lot of your training together. um Your training over the last sort of four, or five months, how has that ah been targeted? You guys are doing slightly different races. So have you been doing some slightly different stuff or like what what what are your sort of like key ingredients to to running the 80K welling career? um i think I think it's funny because I think um Even though we do different distances, Charlie and I do virtually pretty much the same training, like to the point that it's like we'll do just the same workouts, but on different days in the same week.
00:35:04
Speaker
And I think that's because Charlie's ah like a faster runner than I am. And that's the stuff that I need to work on. So I'm doing those kinds of workouts that are for short trail anyway. um And it's kind of the longer, fatigue-resistant stuff that I'm more comfortable with. So it's more of the short trail kind of workouts that I need to work on anyway. So those are the that's the kind of training that I've kind of been doing, I suppose. um But still with still with long, long runs.
00:35:30
Speaker
um But I think in UT, UTI was a good indicator for what like worked well because I didn't think I had, like we didn't max out huge long runs or anything and do anything really long or silly. We just did like classic kind of running workouts. And then i so I kind of still had good legs later on in the race. So I think that's what works well for me. So,
00:35:53
Speaker
um Yeah. that's kind trying i and And I think that would like, like you said, like that, it seems counterintuitive to just do sort of normal running workouts and and work on your speed to then be able to run well over 80 to a hundred K's. But, i um, that stuff is super important and and it's not so much that you're training for, you're not doing 10 K ah pace workouts to train for a 10 K, but you're working on the capabilities that that sort of training yeah gives you. yeah So.
00:36:20
Speaker
just but which can be applied to those longer races. Yeah, for sure. like the Just the more efficient you can be running like X-Pace is going to translate into slower paces anyway. you know If you can comfortably run 320s or 330s or whatever, then you're going to be able to climb quicker more efficiently and you're going to be able to run at 100k pace more efficiently as well.
00:36:41
Speaker
so yeah it's like Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's it's always like just classic marathon training seems to work the best, you know, for a lot of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I read a live read of like a stat recently. And I don't know it exactly. So I may butcher this, but it was something like a the top runners over 100 mile race will still be like if you if you control for as many factors as you can, then it usually does still boil down to who has yeah the people who have the best VLQ maxes are still the ones that are at the top of the race in a hundred mile race. So, um, and, and you know that from people like Jim Momsley and that who are incredible runners. And then they're also incredible over that sort of long distance. So I think that's a huge takeaway that maybe not everyone realizes yeah when they're training for a hundred K races that the best guys in, in the world and the best guys in Australia like yourself are doing that shorter stuff.
00:37:39
Speaker
Charlie and I actually have a theory that what your 5K time is your your potential Western States time, but just in in out in hours instead of minutes and seconds, it's in hours and minutes. So, so Rod Farbenz. I don't mind that. Yeah, so he ran a 1430. Yes, it's linear. Yeah, it's actually a perfect correlation.
00:38:00
Speaker
So, yeah. So someone's going to run 12,000 states. Probably. Yeah, I was like, if Ingebrizzen ran Western states. Yeah. and That's great. I like that. It's good theory. Oh, did we just got to get some more of those fast guys to go over and run it and see if they can do it for 13 hours at Western states. That'd be good. Yeah, it'll probably happen. Have you done a 5K, Mikey? No, I think my 5K PB is currently from a 12K tempo in training, I'm pretty sure. Okay. Mighty One Time broke T's 5K PB two times in a row in and in that same 12K rate. Two consecutive 5K PBs. That's good. I like that. Wait, so you got the 5K PB and then you got it again. Yeah. to I mean, I just haven't haven't done mode races.
00:38:53
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. Cool. Is that something you would like to like, is it something that would like, cause I sort of noticed that from yourself, Charlie as well. Um, is that something that you guys would like to do at some point, like some sort of 5k time trial to sort of actually just check in to see what sort of speech it could run. Is that something on the cards for you and in the future or or is it not that important to you? I haven't, I thought about it. I thought Yeah, I thought about earlier in the year, there's just a big juicy number that I just want to break. And then once I've done that, I don't really, I don't really care for it. Like it would be fun to race a 10K, but then also like kind of boring. I think at least. Yeah, I agree.
00:39:37
Speaker
I would rather save my pictures and go and do ah an ascent on some mountain somewhere, would be more fun. Yeah, true. take ah Take a segment off Charlie yeah somewhere. Yeah, um Ludo, have you done any sort of like shorter distance ah races before, like road races or park runs or something like that, to get a feel for your speed?
00:39:58
Speaker
ah Yeah, no, not for years probably similar in that I just just estimates from training and and in sort of like 40-minute tempo kind of thing um I Have always you know for the last I think three or four years have wanted to get an official Sub 3 marathon in I did a cable Beach sub 3 But it's a bit short. So Yeah, I definitely would like to do that. But but all on sand is I'd like to do I It is all on sand, but it is like hard shit it's all like it's like sand. So it's it's sort of like road running. um But yeah, i want to do I want to be intentional about it. And I just can't seem to prioritize it as a block. um There's all these other races I want to do. And if I'm going to do it, I want to train for it properly and and and get it and just be done with it. Like I don't want to have that hanging over my head. So yeah.
00:40:56
Speaker
I was actually going to do Sydney Marathon instead of Hounslow because I thought it was the other way around. like I thought I would ah train for the marathon and then do the Hounslow marathon the week after but the other way around i didn't it didn't really tick the box so I just didn't do it.
00:41:11
Speaker
But yeah, hopefully one year. I also wouldn't really travel for a marathon from Broome. It's it's not worth it to me. Hence why most of my racing has been long um yeah to make the travel worth it. so But now that I've got a camera, who knows? like I'm going to have races on every other weekend. Maybe, I don't know. Cool. Any other questions for Mikey from Sarah or Charlie? I'm curious to know what marinade you're putting on your tofu. Oh!
00:41:39
Speaker
It's actually, so I did this last night because I didn't have cornflour. I would usually do a cornflour, crispy tofu, but I'm just doing like a honey, soy, sriracha, sesame seeds, and um a little bit of lime juice. um may And is it, is it true that that meal is why you won UTA 100? No, that's, that's a rumor.
00:42:04
Speaker
common misconception about this topic. I thought I read that somewhere. I'm pretty sure the Guardian did an article about you. You would have read it. Yeah, you would have read it in Dan Jones' substat, I think, but no.
00:42:17
Speaker
Beauty, beauty. Any other questions for Mikey, Tafri's tofu? No, I've got more tofu questions. It's the most interesting question. I'll ask more tofu questions. often know Well, thanks so much, guys, for giving us a bit of an overview of where you've been at.
00:42:33
Speaker
this year and and then where you headed and then your initial thoughts around the racing career. Before we, were in future weeks, we'll we'll touch on more detail and I think next week we we might go into and a normal training week for but what ah you guys, what it's looked like. um So make sure you do some good training in the next week. um But I just wanted to end. I want to do some really weird things. I just wanted to end on um some important news I saw on Strava this morning that Charlie may have taken a Strava crown off Mikey. So some breaking news there, but Mikey, do you have any response to that? No, only that that is newsworthy and that it would never usually happen. So I'm glad you brought it up already. Congratulations, Charlie. I'm really happy. It is a pretty standard occurrence. You'll see when you come down to Canberra, Sarah, you will probably be just...
00:43:32
Speaker
Taking all Mikey's KOMs anyway. they pretty They're actually pretty easily up for grabs, so anyone who's keen. anyone Anyone listening wants to come grab an easy KOM, the Mount Tennant climb down south side of Canberra is actually a pretty soft record. I think Mikey might have it, so anyone can go and run up there. Just jog. Yeah, hike it probably. No, it's illegal to hike in Canberra. Sarah, actually, you should get to know that. It's also illegal to hike in Canberra.