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Episode 28: Asia Pacific Trail Champs, GTWS Finals, and Chasing Darkness
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Episode 28: Asia Pacific Trail Champs, GTWS Finals, and Chasing Darkness
Welcome to Episode 28 of Peak Pursuits, your ultimate podcast for everything trail running in Australia. This week’s episode is our first in-person podcast with hosts Brodie Nankervis, Jess Jason and Vlad Ixel all in South Korea for the Asia Pacific Trail Champs!
Start - 32:20 :- Training/South Korea Chat/Trail Fails
This ep starts with chats about what life is like for everyone in South Korea, how the travel went, and how everyone is doing their final preparations for this weekend's races. Trail fails aplenty are included within the chat as the team confess to many funny mistakes on getting lost on the trail while trying to beat darkness home.
32:20 - 51:00 :- Race Results
We then cover a few Aussie and International races that went down over the weekend:
Blackall 100: https://results.sportseventservices.com.au/results.aspx?CId=16287&RId=6392
Lamington Classic: https://www.lamingtonclassic.com/_files/ugd/6b5668_e2d70009b61f4a188f8784f640471533.pdf
Kunanyi Trail Series: https://www.webscorer.com/race?raceid=370125
Roller Coaster Run: https://www.multisportaustralia.com.au/races/roller-coaster-run-2024
Les Templiers: https://templiers.livetrail.run/
Golden Trail World Series Final: https://www.endu.net/it/events/salomon-golden-trail-finals/results
51:00 - End : What’s coming up
Lastly, we do a quick run through of the upcoming trail races around the country and final thoughts on the upcoming APTRC for the team!
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!
Jess: @jessjason
Brodie: @brodienank
Vlad: @vladixel
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter
License code: K08PMQ3RATCE215R
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Transcript
Introduction from South Korea
00:00:08
Speaker
and welcome to episode 28 of the Peak Pursuits Podcast. I'm a regular host Brody and coming to you live from South Korea and we're having our first face-to-face episode, which is very exciting. I'm joined with Vlad and Jess um and we're sitting in Jess's hotel room in Ujugun. Is that how you pronounce it?
00:00:32
Speaker
I'm not sure. I think I had that for lunch today, but yeah, it's something similar.
Asia Pacific Trail Running Championships
00:00:36
Speaker
So we're at the Yunong and Alps where the Asia Pacific trail running champs will be held this weekend. um And Vlad and Jess are gearing up for their race and I'm gearing up for one of the Sky races. um So yeah, it's very exciting. First face to face. How are you going, Jess? Yeah, good. Pretty happy to be here. It's an incredible country. um Just the culture and everything. It's been amazing and Yeah, flying into Seoul was pretty mind-blowing, just like hectic city, people everywhere, but yeah, pretty cool coming from small town Perth and Canberra, so yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, this town is a little bit weird.
Local Tourism and Economy
00:01:17
Speaker
It's kind of like it's got a lot of abandoned hotels. Like I spoke with few locals and they said like 10, 15 years ago, it's really busy here. But since I guess travel has become a little bit cheaper, Jaeju has become a bit more of a tourist spot. This place is like half abandoned. So like on my street,
00:01:38
Speaker
There's probably like 12 hotels but only like 2 or 3 of them operate and the other ones are like fully abandoned which is a bit weird because the closest supermarket to here is for like 10 minute drive from here and um the trails are beautiful. You can see that you know the trails have been looked after. The government has been putting some effort into it but I don't think the numbers of people are coming. I mean it's a good thing because you can get some really cheap accommodation here. You can really get a hotel room here for 20 Australian dollars a night which Um, it's pretty crazy. Um, but yeah, it is beautiful, but at the same time, a little bit weird, like wait till we walk around this little village. Oh, at least when I was here, like five days ago when I got here, there was like nobody here. Um, which was a bit weird, but.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully in the next few days, some of the teams are going to come. So there's 22 countries being represented here and um also obviously the sky running race and the nine peaks race, which is a pretty big event on the Korean trail running calendar.
Trail Running in South Korea
00:02:40
Speaker
It's not as developed as Japan in many ways, the trail running scene in South Korea. But yeah, I've While I've been here, I've seen a couple of trail runners. I've met one trail runner that is doing the same, met him yesterday, um and he was doing the full 40k course as a training run five days before the race, and he's doing the public race. So we start at seven o'clock, the 41k with 2,800 meters of gain, and the public race is two hours later. But yeah, so a couple of people, but not a crazy amount. Beautiful trails. ah
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, the the hotels here are pretty crazy. And it's like, I think it's a little bit of a culture shock as well, like a bit different. Like my room has a karaoke machine and like fancy lots on the roof. And like, you can self serve yourself ramen in the lobby and um just eat as much of of that as you want. So it's yeah, it's, I think some of them are like trying to attract people here to sort of just stay in a hotel, I think, as well. That's the vibe I get from my hotel, at least. um But yeah, the mountains here are so cool. I was out on the trails today. um And yeah, the paths are pretty well developed. How was JJ? Because, Jess, you went to JJ for a couple of days. You didn't?
00:04:00
Speaker
No, I'm going after to the race. Oh, sorry. Yeah, Kelly and Sarah went to Jeju. They said it was, yeah, pretty cool. um I didn't, don't think they had the best weather. So they didn't, it wasn't exactly like a beach holiday, but yeah they said there was a lot of influences there and like, um yeah, people just taking photos of everything. and But yeah, I'm excited to go after the race. It looks beautiful.
00:04:25
Speaker
yeah I feel like that's become a bit more of a... I guess ah guess like I can see like this place being a touristy spot 20 years ago when locals used to travel to the mountains for holidays. But now every that everyone is like you know flying overseas and it's so just so easy and cheap. I guess a lot of South Koreans are going to Thailand. and and Indonesia for holidays rather than you know staying in Korea so yeah I guess JJ is still up there with a bit of a bit more tourists but this place I don't know how long it's gonna survive because yeah hotel rooms for $20 you know and a lot of hotels are closing down it's a bit weird but yeah yeah it's a bit sad like we went to a really nice cafe this morning just across the river and it was run by one lady and um
00:05:13
Speaker
just the food she brought out was incredible and it was also like a pottery, like she made her own pottery and she was like really trying to like sell it to us and I was just like oh I feel so bad I might go back and buy something but they're definitely like a bit desperate I think for tourists over here.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah. Well, hopefully they can have some more races because they do have some beautiful trails here. um I've been here for five days pretty much and I've covered my whole course. It's been a couple of runs with Billy on the course who's been here um for a bit longer, probably like two weeks.
00:05:46
Speaker
um He's seen the whole course three times. um Blake has been here as well, who is doing the short course um with us as well. he's been here for ah it so He's been staying a bit out of town. He's been staying in the city. um He also rented a car because he didn't want to stay out here. ah But yeah, the trails are beautiful. um There are a lot of hikers, a lot of people that actually camp.
00:06:10
Speaker
So we saw a lot of people that like actually hike with their backpacks and then they would camp at different spots which kind of makes it pretty accessible and easy because there are a lot of, I guess, exit points like you're never like too far away from a little town. um So actually it could be a cool hiking trip. I mean the weather has been bit wet and cold, so maybe a few months earlier. It is, um yeah, I mean, fall is in full swing here. The colors ah of the leaves are changing. and um I mean, yesterday, the the top, it was probably like two or three degrees, um so it was really, really cold. I wanted to get the gondola up there, the cable car, but because of the weather, it actually closed.
00:06:50
Speaker
um For the day because it's probably too windy too cold um but yeah a lot of local tourists not so many internationals but Maybe maybe the event this week. We'll kind of bring some more people in um Yeah, and but yeah, yeah, definitely well That's a good segue into what we've been up to for the last week So you said you've been here for five days.
Training and Race Strategies
00:07:11
Speaker
What's training look like for the last week? Yeah, I probably did a little bit more than I should have done. Well, saying that, like if if I look at my Strava last week was still like half of what I've been doing the last few weeks. So maybe it's not that bad. um Yesterday, I did want to get the gondola up and then run down.
00:07:32
Speaker
um And then the gondola was obviously not working. So I was like, well, I'm already here. So I might as well go up. So still hike up. So I did get two hours yesterday. um Just still okay. I still have like another three or four days of like easy training. But yeah, I think my main goal when I got here was to see the whole course. And sometimes I feel like being like few percent a bit more tired and knowing the course is better than feeling a little bit fresh and not knowing the course. um I think mentally it plays a big role if you know the course. um It wasn't easy with all the Ubers and and getting to different spots and finishing in different spots because
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah, some parts away from here is is not that accessible. um But yeah, the course itself, I guess it's like a good mixture of things. So I didn't overdo it on one muscle group, I guess, in many ways, like,
00:08:27
Speaker
It's not like five days of the same similar running. um There's a mixture of stairs, some roads, um some carpeted sections. I've never seen that before, but there's a lot of sections of the trail where there's like carpet that has been put on top. yeah um In Hong Kong usually they just put stairs here. They do put stairs as well, but also big carpeted sections like you can run through like one or two K of just like carpet roads um Which are kind of soft and nice? um So yeah, I don't feel like my legs got too smashed from this week I've done eight and a half hours of running with three and a half thousand meters of elevation gain the race is on Friday and today is a Monday, so I I still have three easy runs to go. I'll probably do some short efforts um tomorrow. But yeah, it's been a bit half of what I usually do, I guess. It's not too bad. Did you change your mind on any of like your gear that you're going to use for the course um after getting here?
00:09:26
Speaker
I think the only thing that was noticeably different was how different it is when it's humid and when it's not humid. So I've done a few runs here where it was humid and I was like, I probably need to reconsider how much water I'm planning to drink. um But then I did my run yesterday and it was really cold and windy and it wasn't humid um and I didn't have any water for two hours and I was fine. So I think it really depends on the day. I'm going to keep an eye on the weather.
00:09:56
Speaker
If it's going to be a humid day, I'll probably consume a bit more water than what I'm planning to. um If it's not going to be a humid day, I'll probably be pouring more water on my head. But from what it looks like, race day is going to be pretty dry. So maybe it's not going to be super humid.
00:10:13
Speaker
um but Yeah, so if if the sun is out and it's not cloudy, it should be a bit less humid, maybe a little bit cooler as well. um But yeah, I guess I'll wait two or three more days because the next few days could be quite wet um and then just see how Friday is. But when it's humid, it's humid. like you know ah Me and Billy definitely sweat quite a lot and on those runs.
00:10:40
Speaker
So yeah it probably play a big big role in that today was only like seventeen degrees master i was telling me but the humidity was eighty one percent and i definitely noticed that like when i was climbing i got really sweaty and like my effort didn't feel high but i was drenched so yeah i think that's a good point that if it's. Yeah the humidity might sneak up on you a little bit even if it's not that hot if it is a humid day.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But otherwise, like I think like we talked a bit about shoes um before. I don't know. I think I'm going to stay with my original Hawker Tecton X as the shoe. They are carbon plated, but they don't have a crazy stack high. That's all with the other shoes. Yeah, I guess it's kind of like the question is like high stack is probably good for like 70% of the course. Is it worth taking it for the whole course?
00:11:32
Speaker
knowing that 30% of the course, it might slow you down a bit. um But other than that, I think I should still be able to do the whole course with my belt. 500ml of water between each eight stations. There are four eight stations. um Sorry, three eight stations. So I can have exactly 500ml for each 10K section of the course. So I don't think I'll change too much at this point, but
00:12:02
Speaker
Nice. It's all shaping up. And Jess, you've also just got here and also to South Korea. What's training look like for you for the last week? One more question. I haven't thought of that actually. Sorry. Is there any reason why you've hidden some Europe? I didn't know that. That's secret stuff. No, no, really. Because I kind of looked at your job and was like, you hadn't run in three days and I was getting worried.
00:12:28
Speaker
Well, probably I know that Matt Ramson is not going to be hearing that, but he's kind of like, he kind of gave me an outlook of what I should be doing and I've been doing way too much. So I just like maybe I just keep hiding it from coach. Hope he doesn't listen to the podcast. Yeah cuz I think like and that's where I think like obviously he knows so much more about running than what I do is one of the best runners in Australia has been so successful for so many years but I think like in trail running knowing the course.
00:12:59
Speaker
um is really, really important. And I feel like, like I said before, I'd rather come into a race a tiny bit tired, but I know the course, rather than coming 100% fresh and not knowing the course. Definitely. I feel like I just mentally, like especially in a race, you're going to be there for four hours. You just make such a massive difference. For a one and a half hour, two hour race, I wouldn't mind. But four hours is a long race. So I really wanted to see the whole course.
00:13:25
Speaker
um like Yes, I was supposed to, only the downhill, get the gondola up, i run down that one technical section. Gondola was close. I still wanted to do it, yeah so I hiked up. It took me an hour to to kind of hike up, you know keeping my heart rate at zone one, so it wasn't a big effort. Still, obviously, like a strength workout, like pretty much walking upstairs for an hour is definitely a workout, and I feel it a bit in my legs today.
00:13:50
Speaker
um but Yeah, I guess kind of hiding the runs from coach. because Well, I think if most runners looked at like, like I'm the same, like I had six days out, my race is on Saturday and I did two and a half hours out today. I think most runners will be like, whoa, that is way too much. Yeah. But if I look at like my weekly, so the last five weeks where I've been running.
00:14:12
Speaker
Like an average of 13 hours a week and 4 or 5 hours of cycling, then coming into a tape a week with 8 and a half hours. I don't think it's too bad. Yeah, I think I would have probably 7 and a half would have been enough. Yeah. Probably that extra hour that I hiked yesterday was too much. but I mean, in the end of the day, I still have five days, so hopefully. Yeah. And I think if you're going a bit slower, like my run today was like 10 minute case. like I wasn't yeah wasn't moving incredibly fast. It's obviously there's time on your fit that does kind of count and and adds up. um
00:14:45
Speaker
And also, like you know obviously, this is race week, so there's an opening ceremony, some other things that you know kind of need to be done for like bigger events like that when when you know just racing for yourself. um So it's probably a bit, and obviously, it's still a working week for me. So yeah, I think kind of thinking about all those things, I'm hoping I didn't even do it, but ah guess I guess I'll know in three or four days. Yeah, it's always hard to get the the balance completely right. and We're always constantly reflecting on it. Probably thinking too much about it.
00:15:15
Speaker
um On that note, Jess, what have you been up to? Yeah, so I flew over on Friday. Um, so before that, I did my last long run and then, um, had a really easy week. So just jogged and did some strides on the Tuesday. Um, jogged on the Wednesday, did a little session on the Thursday, just like a threshold, um, three minute, two minute and one minute efforts, uh, rest day on the Friday for travel.
00:15:45
Speaker
And then Saturday, I was in Seoul with Charlie and Mikey and Brody. We headed up to Buchanan National Park. um I sort of only had an hour planned, but I did also have like a long run to do on the Sunday. So it didn't really matter if I switched them around. um And we sort of had like a 14k loop planned out, had no idea like how long it would take, not really knowing the terrain. And it ended up taking almost two hours. So that was my long run, but it was beautiful up there. Like, um, yeah, like a lot of sort of Rocky kind of stairs. Um, and yeah, sort of like a gradual Rocky kind of descent back into the town. Um,
00:16:31
Speaker
But yeah, really cool at the top, like you can see the whole of the city, um which is, yeah, pretty breathtaking. um And yeah, like the different colored leaves and everything. It was just, yeah, stunning. um And then yesterday I traveled down to where I am now. So where the race is being held, Uldu. And um went out with Trish, Kelly and Sarah for a bit and just did sort of the first climb of the race. um Again, I was sort of hoping for more of an easier effort. And we did take it like super slow. I think most of the time we were walking and hiking. um But it yeah, it still took us like an hour to do 6K. And then we had to come back and we were trying to find shortcuts on the way back, which
00:17:18
Speaker
It was starting to get dark um and we tried to follow like a path that we saw in Strava. And then there was like a few really old ribbons. So we're like, Oh yeah, we'll just follow these. And it was super steep, steep, like on the side of the mountain, just like wet, soft trail and muddy and like leaves. And we're just like falling over all the time. We're like, no, this is not going to work. So then we went back and like retraced our steps. um And then it was getting really dark and one of us rolled our ankles pretty bad.
00:17:48
Speaker
getting distressed and then found another trail that like led to a road. So we went down there and then ended up in some private property and there was like no road there. It was just like kind of a road that looked like it was getting built. Um, so then we had to like scale a fence to get out and eventually found the road and got back to the hotel. And by that time it was like pitch black, but we made it in the end.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're going to we were going to leave this to trail fails, but I had exactly the same trail fail as well. I got here a few days ago and yeah I didn't have too much time. It does get dark here, like really early, especially on those cloudy days. So I did exactly what you did, but I kept going down that really technical bit. um And I was trying to get all the way down to the river, but I couldn't.
00:18:37
Speaker
got lost was walking in between those graves because there's a lot of like, um, burials on the mountains in, in Asian kind of villages. Um, and then I ended up in somebody's backyard. So like literally started yelling at me while I'm walking. So I got a dog barking at me on one side. Um, and then this neighbor yelling at me in Korean, I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Uh, I did record it all for my YouTube channel and hopefully that video will be out in about a week or something. But,
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, it was definitely an experience when because they don't really use Strava much here. um So some of the paths that you see on Strava are actually not there. I look on Strava, I'm right on this trail. They should be leading me to the river. But there's nothing there. And yeah, it was pretty much like a bushwhacking in the middle of the night, um which was an experience. And I guess before we go to your training week, Brody, you want to tell us about your trail fail this week? Yeah, I was going to say ah that that was a ah topic for
Travel Challenges and Adaptations
00:19:30
Speaker
the week. And it seems to be like a, I don't know,
00:19:33
Speaker
I guess in the northern we're in the northern hemisphere now and it's changing from um the the days are getting shorter. and I'm not sure I've ever had this experience or these experiences in Australia when it does the same thing like maybe around say April, ah May when it starts to get darker earlier. I don't know if it's just because I've grown up and I know when things get dark. and I guess you know the local area, but um I had a very similar experience in Sicily before I left Europe where I went for a run, left a little bit late. It's getting darker earlier. like I've spent a few months in Europe and it gets dark at 8pm, 9pm and now it's getting darker.
00:20:10
Speaker
7pm but that was when I was in Greece and it's actually getting dark at 6.30pm not 7pm and i'm I'm not quite up to date with when it gets dark. um So I head out the door at like 5 and then my route is a little bit off. I get like one part of the route is closed so I have to go somewhere else. It's the same thing. You're trying to plan off Strava or all trails and it doesn't always add up and I ended up, the last part of my route that was potentially a bit sketchy down this sort of like sandstone ah valley where the trail was at the bottom of the valley. And it was it existed on all trails and it existed on Strava and I was like, should be all right. We should be able to do that. But that was the point where it was like the sun had already gone down. So it was rapidly getting fast and then the trail like disappeared into like
00:20:54
Speaker
overgrown like stinging nettle, blackberries, like all of the greenest stuff that you find at the bottom of like a valley. Um, and it was like literally getting dark. And I was so, I was like, I don't know what to do. Like, should I go back? But then I'll have to go further. And I was about to turn back. And then I found the trail, but then I was just so scared. Like, it was just like, you get that irrational scared when it gets dark. Well, I do anyway. And I don't like being particularly love being in the bush.
00:21:23
Speaker
when it's when it's getting dark, I just get scared that like everything jumps out at you. But then when you start to get scared, it like exponentially gets more scared. So I look back at my Strava afterwards and after I found this trail, I think it was about 2K out to a road and my heart rate sat at like 180. I wasn't even running hard. I was like running fast, but I wasn't like, it didn't feel effortful, but adrenaline was just hitting so hard. Cause I was like, is there wolves in Italy? Like i don't I don't know. And then there's dogs barking at you and you're like, you're so on edge. um But yeah, that was an experience. That reminds me of a time that I ran once in Germany. So I'm just running up this climb and I really want to get to the peak. I don't know. Every time I'm in Europe, my goal is like just make it to the peak and run down. So I'm running up like an hour and a half. It's raining. It's cold. And then I see this gate and there's like a picture of like, um, like he says something with like a big X on it. So I'm like, I don't know if I can go through this, like,
00:22:21
Speaker
So anyway, I kind of like go through this, I run, but I'm super scared. I don't know what this sign said, right? So I'm running there. I see like some cows and stuff like that. So I thought maybe like, be careful of the wild cows or something. So I'm like sprinting uphill next to those cows. rain When I go down, I spring next to those cows. And then I showed my wife the picture of the of the gate. I was like, what does this say on the gate?
00:22:43
Speaker
And she goes just close the gate behind you. But I was so scared for like, yeah, probably like half an hour till I made it to the peak and ran down back to this gate. I was so scared. But it was just, yeah, shut the gate behind you. I think it's like, that seems to be like the big issue here in Korea is you can't actually like make sense of the words because it's like the, it's all the, the, like the symbols instead of actual letters. So like you can't even sort of try and make sense of a word, um which makes it tricky to be like,
00:23:11
Speaker
Where am I? Where am I? Can I go here? is this Is this a friendly sign? Is this a negative sign? Like what am I looking at? Yeah, definitely that i trying I was showing you guys the the translate app with a picture um thing that kind of saved my life. Cause I went to the supermarket and everything's in Korean. Like you can, like there's like not even like the type of where the food is. You can only see the picture. And, and yeah, first day in the supermarket, I was there for like an hour and a half trying to find lunch. Um,
00:23:40
Speaker
And yeah, once then, Blake is like, oh, he just used this app. And I was like, it just made it so much easier. And now I walk around the streets just like pointing my phone at like ah different things and seeing what it says there. And obviously, the translation is always like not 100%. So sometimes it's really funny. like I go past a hotel and it goes, yeah, fast internet, great room, $220, hot springs.
00:24:04
Speaker
There's no hot springs here. It's just hot water. yes some of the yeah Yeah, but they do kind of like say there's hot springs here, but there isn't any hot springs. Like they just market as hot springs, but it's just the normal tap water that they heat up. Like it's not like warm water that's coming out of the ground. So yeah, I think there's a missed translation there. Yeah. That was an enjoyable, um,
00:24:29
Speaker
chat. If anyone has any good trail fails related to getting, chasing, chasing ah ah racing the night and getting back from a run and getting lost and it's spiraling, please send them in. We'd love to love to hear them and feel validated about our runs over the last few weeks. um But yes, I, um my training week, I came from Europe this week. So I flew out of Sicily on Wednesday um and I arrived in Korea on Thursday um and I was a little bit sick at the start of the week so I just jogged and then I didn't want to get more sick so I was trying to sort of look after the body. So I pretty much just jogged until I got to Korea and I haven't really done any intensity since apart from just sort of getting out on the trail. So as Jess was saying, we went out for a run
00:25:18
Speaker
on Saturday in Seoul and that was was pretty cool. I went a little bit further and climbed up the big peak there um and it was heaps of people where it was super slow because I just had to like dodge people but it was really fun um and something that I don't know if they build that sort of thing in Australia like it was like climbing up bare rock at like a gradient of like 40% and it was just like any person was there like it was just like but Everyone was doing fine, but I was like, it seemed a little bit risky. um But yeah, that run got a bit slow around there, but it was it was good. I ended up being, as just said, I was out for two hours 15, a bit longer than I expected as well. um And then, yeah, ah just I think I just jogged yesterday and then today's Monday, but I went out for a course recce, as I was saying before with Kelly, um who's running the long trail. She's got the
00:26:13
Speaker
The second 15K of my course is the same as the last 15K of her course. um So we sort of did that together um and that was it was pretty fun. um We took it fairly easy and like I've got the same thing as what Vlad was saying in my mind of like What's too much in, I feel like in sky running races even more than you sort of standard trail race, the more you see the terrain, the better off you are because it is like they're generally more technical. So yeah, I feel like it was quite useful to get out today. um I'm planning to do the first part of my course tomorrow, which is about 11K, but also has 1,200 up and down. So I'm going to
00:26:55
Speaker
see how I wake up. um But yeah it's a yeah, mostly feel like Cos last week was so cruisy. I feel like that was nearly part of my taper um and I'm still feeling okay now. So I feel like it's not too bad for me to be doing this. But um yeah, it's it's always a bit of a learning and trying to get it right, trying to balance when you're traveling to a race and you want to see the course but you don't want to do too much.
00:27:19
Speaker
You sort of got to get it, practice it a bit every time and and then in the end you'll figure out, it just gets better and better the process. But yeah, we'll see how it pans out. All right, let's move on. Does anyone else have anything they wanted to ah add or questions about the the races that are coming the weekend? You guys got any any other thoughts? Just what shoes are you thinking of? Not sure. Is that a bad question to ask? Yeah, okay. I feel like shoes is that shoes is the most stressful conversation before any race.
00:27:50
Speaker
I mean, I wore my carbon-plated high-stacked ones on Saturday, and they were good. Yeah, okay. Yeah. And that was that was probably that was probably similar to like what I experienced today. like no and I think the bid I ran on today is potentially more technical than much of your course. So yeah, if we felt okay there, then it's possibly okay.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, it was just this soft the soft terrain in the first climb that got me thinking they might not like work because carbon plates against a softer surface tend to be a little bit like slow you down a bit. yeah But you're saying there's not much of that kind of softer It's not a crazy amount of soft climbing. I feel like this is a mixture of everything. I think probably just being confident and assured that you usually run makes a bit of a difference.
00:28:46
Speaker
But yeah, it's hard to say because obviously you're going to gain a bit by having stack height and and carbon plated. But like obviously you're going to lose some on technical sections. I feel like you know, stack height on and technical sections is where you lose a bit of time. um Or they could be a little bit more dangerous. But yeah, I guess like it's, it is a personal i call like how confident you feel with those shoes.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah. It's a long, it's going to be a long. So yeah, for you, it's probably like four and a half hours. It's like, yeah, it's a long race. A bit of support and cushioning could be nice, but at the same time, you know, it's probably going to be risky at parts. It's a hard calculation to do. And like, it's like, how much do you gain on the 70% of the courses really runnable that then like and And then how much do you lose in the 30% of the course where it does slow you down a little bit? is like It's nearly an impossible calculation, so it's a tricky one, really. But um yeah, I'd probably agree with that. Whatever you feel comfortable running in is probably whatever you felt comfortable running in a is probably the best choice. um And maybe the same with like other things like not changing too much on race day. So if you've been training a lot in that shoe, then using that shoe.
00:30:00
Speaker
But yeah yeah yeah, I mean, I'm going to run in the Hawker Tekton X1, which is like my usual training show. I don't really race in them um because I've been racing shorter races. Like I kind of felt like they're a bit too much for like a short race, but for this kind of race,
00:30:17
Speaker
um they kind of feel about right and I think that I wasn't sure as well that's why I wanted to see the whole course and kind of you know make the call and um yeah that's why seeing the course makes a big difference yeah I don't know if that technical section even if with like this big stack sure you're gonna lose like two minutes right if you go a bit slower if you don't risk it you go like you lose two or three minutes over those six care of technical running are you gonna gain two minutes ah and the rest of the course probably you know two minutes is not that far much I guess the problem is even they're becoming a bit more dangerous, but if you feel confident in them and you've been running and them, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. So you know when to push and when not to push. um But yeah, obviously you still have four days to to make that call. You're probably not going to see much of the course, but yeah, the way I see this course is 70% of it, they should be fine. oh Maybe even 80% they should be fine. 20%, they probably be a bit uncomfortable.
00:31:15
Speaker
um So yeah, is it worth it? I'll make a decision in the next few days. I'm sure we'll be thinking a lot about shoes, everyone in the team. Mikey's been peppering me with questions about the last 15k of the course because he's trying to figure out what shoes he should wear.
00:31:32
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I think everyone's always thinking about it, but I think in the end, like in the, in the grand scheme of things, it probably makes like a five minute difference max. So like, obviously we're always chasing those marginal gains, but, um, like it's all the hard work you've been doing over the last six months. It's going to make more of a difference. So yeah, I guess that's the, you try and take yourself out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I mean, if you're just going to go a bit slow on the technical sections, the last downhill and the last uphill, I think.
00:32:02
Speaker
they're pretty runnable, so I mean, that's like 12K that you can make some time as well. So I think for the last 12K, I think those shoes would be fine. um Even for the last 18K of the race, I think it'd be fine. Yeah, cool. All right, well, we might move on. um I think we'd already announced the, like we already said, who was in the Asia Pacific trail running team that's competing, but that will be on,
00:32:29
Speaker
this Friday and Saturday, the two courses. um So we'll recap that next week. um But good luck to all of the team.
Race Highlights and Results
00:32:39
Speaker
It'll be fun that I'm looking forward to watching.
00:32:42
Speaker
um We might move on to some results from this week. So we had some um big yeah Australian races happen as well as some some big international races with some Aussies running overseas. um So we might start domestically. um We had Blackall 100.
00:33:02
Speaker
up in Queensland. um So that's a 100K race. And in the men, we had first was Liam Therens in 1023. Second was Andrew Gaskell in 1131. And third was Jordan Kuk Nuku, I think I've said that right, in 1131. 56 in the women first was Dominique Ryan in 12 22nd was Donna Highland in 1401 26 and third was it Morgan Sullivan in 1401 50 so over a hundred k race split by 24 seconds at the end so I'm sure that was an exciting finish I wonder if there was a bit of a battle at the end um but that was
00:33:54
Speaker
Blackall. Also, I believe maybe up in Queensland as well, Mamington Classic. On their website, they say they're the oldest trail run. I'm not sure if that's, I can't fact check them there, but that's what they said. um They had a half marathon and a marathon. um and It looks like they had a half marathon again on the following day, which is interesting to half marathons. Anyway, we might just cover the results of the marathon, except that looks like it's two results. Sorry, I'm getting a bit confused by these results here. um We'll put in the times for the the marathon. So in the marathon, first place in the females was Shona Osborne and she had, it's a turn time. Her total time was five
00:34:44
Speaker
hours 18 minutes. Second was Rebecca Burton in 5 hours 39 and third was Pamela Murch in 5 hours 51. In the men, we had first Chris Coombs in 358, 26. Another close finish with Uyong Kwon finishing in second in 358, 40. And third was Fred Boyne in 403.
00:35:12
Speaker
We went onto those runners and then a short little race down in Tasmania. um Part of the Kinyani Trail Series was the knockers race. I think it's called knockers and knockers sport. I think they were the two different distances.
00:35:30
Speaker
So, the knocker's distance was the, this was a twilight race. um It was 11 kilometres. In the men, first was Mark Assili. I've definitely seen his name in the Kinyani Trail Series results before, so he might be going for the overall series season.
00:35:48
Speaker
ah Tom Carr in second in 49 minutes 17 and third was Ben Horsham in 51 18 in the females we had first was Isabella Comfort in 102 49 second was Karen Hill in 103 27 and third was Victoria Imms in 103 41 So some close racing at the end, 52 seconds from first to third. So cool shorter distance race down in Tassie. And I think, Jess, you're going to give us the results for maybe the biggest race of the weekend at RollerCoaster Trail Run in Victoria.
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, so we had another one of the single track events on um that was out at the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria. um So there was a 23K race, which is the single loop, and there was a 46K race, which is a double loop.
00:36:45
Speaker
um And the fields were pretty hot for this one. So we had a couple of road runners um come to this one, which was pretty exciting. So in the men's race for the 23K, we had Seth O'Donnell, who is an incredible cross country and road runner. I think he just came off the back of like a 64 minute half at Melbourne the week before. And he took the win in one hour 35, which I think was a course record.
00:37:16
Speaker
um Yeah, amazing, super fast and um loved his reel that he put up on Instagram a couple days before. We should definitely go look at that if you haven't seen it already. um And then Nathan Pierce, the previous record holder was second in one hour 40, so only about five minutes behind. um So we went on to him um and then Callum White was third in one hour 47.
00:37:43
Speaker
And then in the women, um the one and only Kate Avery was first in one hour 56. And um women's field was super strong as well. So the top three were all within two minutes of each other, which is pretty amazing. um It's not usually that close in a race like that. um And then Sarah Klein, who came off the back of melbourne mar ah third place at Melbourne Marathon the week before, was second in one hour 57.
00:38:11
Speaker
um And from Kate, we sort of heard that i Kate was in second place up until a couple of Ks to go and then sort of overtook Sarah. So a bit of an exciting race between those two. um And then Mia Noble was third in one hour 58. So then in the 46K for the men, we had Josh Godding in first place in four hours 03.
00:38:37
Speaker
And then we had Nick Montgomery in second place in four hours 04 and Thomas Dade in third in four hours 09. So all pretty close between those three men. um And then in the women for the 46K we had Jade Bucklow in first in four hours 39. Sarah Tapp in second in five hours 14.
00:38:59
Speaker
And third was Emma Rave in five hours 31. So there was those were our results for the roller coaster run. Awesome. We then have a couple of overseas results. I might get you just to, you're going to cover the, we had a result at Le Templière. I think hopefully I pronounced that correctly. You had Maddie Reynolds running there.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, so Maddie Reynolds ran incredibly at um this race over in France where she's currently living. um So it was cold and marathon, but I think it was about 36K, almost 2000 meters of elevation gain, and Maddie placed nights there. So awesome result from our Aussies overseas.
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah, impressive run there. And yeah, I think all of these, I think Le Templier's quite a famous run. So the fields are generally pretty deep there. So a great run for Matty. I saw in the men of the same distance, they actually had um one of the French marathon Olympians running. um He ran the marathon in Paris um and he set off at like a cracking pace and um was quiet quite, ah I think he put in a little bit of a gap um to the rest of the field, but then he ended up blowing up. um He described hitting the wall a little bit. um And Antonio Martinez Perez became third at OCC, so a very decent trail runner himself. He ended up getting the win. But yeah, I thought it was quite interesting to see an Olympic marathon runner standing up, then running a trail race. So I thought that was pretty cool to see. Also, probably but maybe one of the bigger events
00:40:39
Speaker
of the whole year, um but definitely a big event for the weekend um was the final of the Golden Trail World Series. um So this one's a little bit complicated in terms of, um it does have a few different things going on at the same time. So they have the c combination of the World Series happening, um which is the, I think there's maybe six to eight races across the season and you have to score in three races and then you yeah for your three races and the final count towards your overall season score. And also interestingly for us in Australia, it was the um also the national series finals or the the finals between the different national series around the world. So we did have the Australian team, I guess we can call them ah racing over there. So we had in the,
00:41:36
Speaker
men Leo Patterson running and in the and Toby Lang running in the under 23. And then in the women we had ah Maggie Lenox running in the in the open and Indiana Zamet running in the under 23. So those runners all ran against the other national series runners. I don't actually know the overall result, how that ended up. I haven't been able to find that just yet.
00:42:04
Speaker
um but I'm sure we'll be able to talk about that on the next episode. um But apart from those runners, we also had a few others competing. So we had our very own Simone Brick running um in sort of the open elite race, um and also Lara Hamilton, um who we've spoken quite a bit about over the last few months. So those two were both running. um In the how the race is actually panned out, there was a prologue Um, and that was a seven K race with 400 meters of climb. So it was a bit of a, uh, a time well it was a time trial. So they started at one minute intervals, um, and then sort of blasted around this, uh, short course at some incredibly fast times. Um, and then there was a longer race. I think it was, I don't know the exact distance. I think it's 20 around 20, 25 to 30. I'll just get that up in a moment.
00:43:02
Speaker
um And that was two days after, um but they went women, men, women, men. So there sort of there was a four days of of running if you wanted to to watch it all. um Did you guys watch any of it? I watched a little bit. Just like the Instagram stories and stuff.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah. so I mean, I'm still going to probably, when I get back to Australia, I get on the bike and watch the hu yeah yeah the whole the whole race. But yeah, it's pretty crazy to see. The level is insane. like we We obviously talked about a few races that are happening at the same time, but um yeah, the level of trail running, the trail runners that did show up there.
00:43:38
Speaker
um Yeah, it's pretty insane. Like, yeah, some of the paces on those people ran those races is just so crazy. Yeah, I was looking at shows, they showed the, I see this Instagram page that does like an analysis sometimes with the trial races and Remy Bonet came second in the prologue. um So he was 25 seconds behind, but he's, he's a,
00:44:01
Speaker
average pace was 345s and it was 7k with 400 meters of climb. So it was like a lot of climb um and it was ah also like quite technical downhill I think. So yeah, the speeds there are just incredible.
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I watched the whole thing, but it was good to see some Australians make it over there. Yeah. Hopefully a couple more in the years to come. But yeah, the sport is definitely moving forward really, really quickly. um And yeah, I just feel like we're a little bit behind in Australia and Asia in general with the level. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. um I think it's a good starting spot. It's good to see us on the world stage this year because we haven't been at this competition as like the the Australian team, I guess, in the past. So it's good to sort of start the ball rolling. And um I'll run through the Australian results. So in the prologue,
00:44:54
Speaker
um we had in in the men. So we've got multiple people coming up as Oz that aren't Oz. So it's not finding the people I want. um So we had Leo Pedersen was in 48th and he ran the prologue in 3052, which is still super fast time. The winning time was 2549 by Elazin Elazu. Sorry, Elazin Elazu.
00:45:23
Speaker
um And then we also had Toby Lang running that race and he ran. He came in 75th in 35 22. So he's one of our under 23 runners. Then in the women we had.
00:45:38
Speaker
ah more more women runners than we did men. We had Lara Hamilton in 34th in 3648, so another speedy time. Incredibly the fastest time in the women was Joyce Najuro in 3138, so she was not far behind Leo's time, she was flying, but Lara's done really well there to be just five minutes down. Then we had Simone in 44th, 3756, and really quite respectable time, I think, for Simone, probably not a preferred distance or duration, so it was really awesome to see her pushing a limit there. um And then we also had Maggie Lenox in 70th, she ran 4218,
00:46:24
Speaker
And Indiana Xamet in 82nd, she ran 49-49. So then on the two days later, we had, I guess, the main race. So in the men, we had Leo in. Sorry, it's getting on to these results.
00:46:46
Speaker
hard to find. There he is. So we had Leo Pedersen 56th in two hours 1339. The winner was 15019. So it's pretty impressive and it's very bunched up, um especially from say 17th onward. there's people finishing every sort of 30 seconds and some sprint finishes as well. So a nice run from Leo there. And then in the females, we had, oh, that was the first one. Sorry, Simone. In the females, we had Lara Hamilton in 36th. She ran 231-34. The winning time was 208-40. But that was Joylene Shepton,
00:47:35
Speaker
chappanino I think it's one of the first times I've seen her name um and ah her name her name in the Golden Trail series, but she won by four minutes and 20 seconds. So she's had a very impressive day. um And then some of the runners we normally see were following up behind her. um We also had Simone in 63rd in two hours 46. So I'm sure we'll hear a little bit about Simone's weekend and how her race went I'm not exactly sure how she felt about that one. I think she's pretty excited to be heading home. um And we also, I think there were only two finishes. It looks like maybe the other two did not finish or didn't start that race. um So yeah, that's ah the results for the Golden Trail series. um And hopefully next year we have some more runners there again.
00:48:33
Speaker
I think we should mention a runner from Spain. His name is Alan Santamaria. He runs for Salomon. So apparently, like two or three years ago, he finished 50th in Zigama. Two years ago, if last year, he finished 20th. And this year, it was top 10. And now, he's also top 10 in the Golden Trail. so um Yeah. Climbing the ranks really, really quickly, which is incredible to see because the level is so high. Yeah. I know in Spain, the level is so high. So it looks like they're sort of, and all their ranks are sort of improving together. Alain actually won the Sky Running World Champs VK and the Sky Distance this year in September. Yeah. So yeah I've been sort of tracking his name a little bit and seeing, because at that race I hadn't ever heard of him and obviously he is like high quality and he's definitely
00:49:27
Speaker
getting better. So yeah, cool to see. But yeah, that top 10 is, or top 20 is just packed full of names. Like it used to be Golden Trail World Series, you'd look at the top 10 and say, wow, that's crazy. Now you look at the top 30 and go, wow, that's crazy. So um the level is definitely in that sub ultra space is definitely rising rapidly. um So hopefully we can keep up.
00:49:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's going to be tough, but yeah yeah, just looking at, um, Alan, Santa Maria and his ITRA ranking in 2017 was 678, um, 2027 79. And now he's getting results, um, up in the nine hundreds. Um, so yeah, pretty crazy climb. You got 903 in a race in Spain.
00:50:18
Speaker
902 in a race in France. So yeah, some really great results. Yeah, that yeah I think we are we are pretty far away from those numbers. But maybe one day. okay if we If we hopefully increase the depth, that's the thing like the the Spanish run, like if we use Spain as example, the depth is is really good. They've got like high level runners down to the top 100 in Spain. So that's sort of I think where we need to be at if we want a top level to be really high. So I guess we'll head there slowly and hopefully catch up. um But yeah.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah, and I think a big stepping stone for that is events like the Asia Pacific Trail Champs where you know hopefully you know the Australian team can shine a little bit more and get a little bit more people getting into the sport. and um Yeah, because right now this gap is um it's just growing and growing and growing. and Even though I feel like the level in Australia is increasing, it's just not increasing at the same level as the international. so Yeah. yeah and And maybe the depth isn't increasing as quickly as it is in other countries. Yeah. I mean, the US is doing well. I think that um they have some trail running in colleges and high schools, um which will mean that within 10 years, they'll be even more competitive. They are competitive right now.
00:51:38
Speaker
um I mean, the Alan Christian came eighth in the final um and they have a couple of really good runners as well in that kind of sub ultra racing category category with Eli Heming, who was a professional triathlete that moved into trail running in his girlfriend, Taber as well. So um yeah, a couple of really good names in the US scene of things as well.
00:52:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So there's probably a few things we can look at. All right, well, I think that's all for this week, unless anyone has anything they want to add. me Any last thoughts? All right. Yeah, I think we're going to have a little bit more next week when we'll have Simone back on the show and she can go through her races. I don't think she's super happy with her results, but I know that she's pretty happy to to travel back home. so And then we'll also get Yeah, get the rundown on on on Asia Pacific trails, on board sky yeah um Brody Sky Do you know if anybody's coming over for the Sky Race? Yeah, I don't know. um
00:52:50
Speaker
Oh, you cherry picked this race? Yeah, well, that's the thing. I sort of feel like a cherry picker, but like I'm sure someone will turn up and disappoint me. um ah The main reason I decided to go down the distance was the duration of the race. So hopefully I can actually run shorter than what Vlad runs in his race to prove that I made a good choice. um But yeah, i don't usually this guy running puts out some content in the week before and they do like a top 10 contenders, so um then I guess we might be able to see. But yeah, there's so much happening in Europe at the moment. Obviously, a lot of the Asian runners will be running the Asia Pacific Trail running champs, maybe some Americans, I don't know. Yeah, I feel like there's so many good runners now that somebody's gonna show up. Yeah, when there's prize money to be had, someone shows up. What is the prize money, Jun? I think it's about 1,000 euro for the win, because it's one of the Sky Running World Series races. They have like a minimum amount of
00:53:44
Speaker
prize money that every race in that series has to have. um So the prize money is generally good for these races. um I think the Asia Pacific one is 4000 US. So it does have more prize money. So like, you would think that if you were very, very good, you would still be running that race. But maybe some of the fifth or sixth runners from their country will royal race and they will still be very good competition, I'm sure.
00:54:10
Speaker
I know what Skyrunning does well is that it invites a lot of people, um so they pay for a lot of flights and accommodations throughout the year, so I'm sure that they will. Yeah, I think later on the week, I mean, you'll see the list. There should be a couple of Europeans that would come up for this race. Maybe some, um, also good runners that did the Thai race. You know, I feel like there could be an option of, um, some of them, some of the Chinese runners even doing it. There's a few African runners in that race as well. So yeah, that's when I talk about the, Ethiopians that in our first time that I've seen them race. I think there's obviously some of them that are doing road running in Thailand and Malaysia that base a few teams, a few African teams. South Korea is probably a little bit further away, but maybe some of them will actually make it here.
00:54:59
Speaker
And yeah it's gonna be a ah big weekend there's so much happening this weekend. um I'm looking forward to it. It's kind of hard to kind of imagine this town ah kind of coming to life after being here for a couple of days and seeing how like you can walk in the middle of the main road here on the road and you want to get hit by a car because there's no cars.
00:55:18
Speaker
It's really hard to get an Uber or a taxi here from here. Not obviously if you're in town and you want to get to here, it's okay. But from here, um it's really, really hard. So yeah, I'm excited to see. I'm hoping there are 22 countries represented. ah Yeah. Have you seen the field sizes? They're pretty small. Pretty small. I heard 60 something combined for our race. Oh wow. Short trail. 60 people a lot. That's what I heard. Yeah.
00:55:47
Speaker
That's, that's hot tag. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, we have a full team for the Australian men and Australian women, right? Four and four? Three and four. Yeah. And in the and the news release, they did say that Australia was one of like the leading teams. So yeah, it could be interesting to see how we go as a team.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah, so what um Billy was saying that there is two rankings, um top three in your category, so male, short distance. But then there's also the top nine from overall. So like under 23 is long and short, top nine results go for the final ranking. um So yeah, probably a good chance if we're 10% of the field.
00:56:29
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we'll be good to see how it goes down. I know Hong Kong is coming with 40 runners over. um I don't think the South Korean team is going to be too big. I have a feeling that the team is not going to be too big. but yeah like Malaysia and Singapore are sending decent sized teams probably bigger than ours. But yes, I didn't realize it's only 60.
00:56:50
Speaker
pen yeah ah Yeah, I guess we'll find out in the next few of days. I'm sure there'll be lots of things that pop up that we didn't know about over the next few days, so it'll be an exciting week. um Back in Australia, we have a few races happening across the country. Looks like there's a Coast Trek, Margaret River, and WA. Do you guys heard of that race before? There's always so many races. It's hard to keep. I'd say Great Ocean Trail, Ultra, I think.
00:57:17
Speaker
and is a comeback of an old race maybe um on again this year. um There's a couple of Halloween races in various places, which is cool to see. ah The Puluma Ultra in ah Townsville, ah Puffing Billy, um which is an interesting race in Victoria where you have to race the Puffing Billy train, see if you can beat it to the other end. um We've also got Backout Ultra,
00:57:48
Speaker
happening up in Queensland, Smurfs, Backout, Ultra, um and a couple of other races happening across the country as well. It's always hard to give them all a yell out, but you'll see several things happening. um And then a few more things happening in November, busy time for trail running, I think, in Australia, good time of year to have events. So what's happening? um As always, let us know if something's happening in your area that we should be across, any results, anything interesting you see. um Otherwise,
00:58:18
Speaker
We'll see you next week and yeah, good luck Vlad and Jess in your races. I'm very excited to watch you guys. It's gonna be a good watch and then I get to go out on the trails the next day. Have a good week. See you guys next week. Thanks guys, yeah.