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Episode 81: National Champs Debate, Garmin vs Strava, and Four Peaks Preview
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In this week’s episode of Peak Pursuits, James is joined by Brodie and Vlad for a packed conversation on all things trail running. Vlad shares his plans for the Tarawera 100k, Brodie starts looking forward to some end-of-season events, and James speaks openly about a setback on his return journey.
The trio dive deep into the state of Australia’s National Trail Championships — what’s working, what’s not, and how it could evolve — before taking on the great Strava vs. Garmin debate and what it means for athletes and data-driven coaching.
They wrap up with an in-depth preview of the iconic Four Peaks Run in Bright, including start lists stacked with Australia’s best mountain runners.
Tune in for candid insights, a few laughs, and a big dose of Aussie trail running talk.
Results:
Javellina Jundred
https://live.aravaiparunning.com/#/javelina_jundred-2025?raceId=301823
Great Ocean Trail Ultra
https://tomatotiming.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16&RId=29929
Heysen Trail
https://my.raceresult.com/368577/
SEQ Trail Series: Pomona (Round 2)
https://www.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=20148&RId=132&EId=1
***Don’t forget, use code PEAK at https://bix-hydration.myshopify.com/en-au for 20% off Bix products, exclusive to PPP listeners!***
Thanks for tuning in to Peak Pursuits!
Connect with us on Instagram @peakpursuits.pod to share your thoughts, questions, and your own trail stories. Until next time, keep hitting the trails and chasing those peak pursuits!
Follow Brodie: Instagram | Strava
Follow Vlad: Instagram | Strava
Follow James: Instagram | Strava | Website
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: K08PMQ3RATCE215R
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Transcript
Introduction and Co-host Updates
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 81 of the Peak Pursuits podcast. You're joined again by myself, James, and I have got Brody and Vlad with me as well. Brody, how are going? Yeah, pretty good. I'm back in the country, so it's nice. It's good to be home.
00:00:24
Speaker
Good to be settled back in. The first time on since you've been home? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got back in last Monday um and I've sort of been settling in. So yeah, it's good good to be back. It's pretty chilly today, but I think the weather's going to start turning around.
Vlad's Training Challenges and Goals
00:00:41
Speaker
And Vlad, how you been? Because you've been back for a few weeks now. Yeah, I've been back for a few weeks, don't have any trips planned, which I'm really happy about and happy to like get some training in. And yeah, like Brody said, it it is actually quite good weather here in Perth as well. So I'm just making the most out of um some cooler days for now.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, i feel like it's ah our cool weather that we don't like, you really like, because it's obviously not as cool as well. But it's not very cool. Yeah, it's a nice 12 degrees this morning, which was nice for my run.
00:01:14
Speaker
Very good. what's like When you've been coming back from overseas, what's the shape been like? I usually come back feeling fit, but then not doing track workouts for 10 to 12 weeks.
00:01:27
Speaker
I do feel it. And yeah, kind of think that I should be doing more of them while I'm away. But obviously just being surrounded by the mountains in Europe and You know, kind of look at a peak and I just go, I just want to run to the top, get a picture and run down.
00:01:42
Speaker
Um, but yeah, also know that, you know, to be competitive today, i probably need to be doing a bit more while I'm away as well, like a bit more structured training. Um, and yeah, kind of coming back.
00:01:54
Speaker
I feel like I'm a bit like I've lost a little bit um of that speed and and fitness overall. um But not too bad because obviously I was still training a fair amount while I was away.
00:02:06
Speaker
Do you think you can do any more whilst you're away? Because I can't imagine you've got ample time with travel and Vic's work. um I did put like three weeks while I was away at around 20 hours a week of training. That was definitely a push.
00:02:19
Speaker
And probably not something that I could do on a regular basis. um I think it's just a little bit hard in the way that I just look at the Strava and like look at the pics out of the window and I'm like, I just want to go to the top because I know then then I'm going to go back to Perth and I don't get that. I get pretty much the same 30 minutes in the morning and 60 minutes at night.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, the same trails, the same footpath. So I'm trying to make the most out of that. But I think if I live there, um ah would definitely, you know, train a little bit differently. But yeah, obviously, we we travel for a combination of things, which is work, I guess, some family time and um my running. So I just have to try and find the balance between them.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah. What's the the last couple of weeks look like for training-wise? Just slowly getting back into it. So just adding um you know the key sessions on Tuesday and Thursday and then a little bit of like you know um doubles throughout the week just to get that volume up.
00:03:19
Speaker
um But also – so I signed up to TerraWara 100K and I kind of started kind of thinking about it. and I'm like it's still four months away. I don't want to get – to carry it away with training too soon.
00:03:32
Speaker
yeah I actually slowed down the amount of training last week and set up probably, you know, instead of having two down weeks, I can have three down weeks and start training.
00:03:43
Speaker
Not a big difference, but I think it'll hopefully keep me fresher for a bit longer as we kind of get into the warmer months of them of summer. I find interesting because like the tendency obviously would just be to push, push, push and keep building and keep building and keep building. So do you find that you need to like almost leave your space, leave yourself that space to go? Otherwise you'll just burn out.
00:04:05
Speaker
Usually not, but because I've already had nine days off an easy week of jogging, then I then i thought it's a pretty easy place just to add on another week of jogging.
00:04:16
Speaker
um And that would just give my body a bit more rest before I try and hopefully hit some 14, 16 hour training weeks. um But usually I wouldn't do that, but because it was already connected to my kind of off season break and a few weeks of jogging, then I thought, yeah, another week is probably just going to do don make good. um once I get to January and hopefully be hitting some 200k weeks.
00:04:38
Speaker
And then taking the golden ticket and going all the way to States. I don't know those golden tickets races are getting so competitive. i mean, hopefully you guys saw some of the um footage out of Javelina the day before um course records are going, going left, right and center right now. People are running quick.
00:04:57
Speaker
I just have a feeling there'll be some fast guys from the U S coming to New Zealand. for that golden ticket. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it would be nice to have it, but then i also have to be a bit realistic with the fact that two or three guys coming over and, you know, it's not going to be a golden ticket race for me and rather me getting back to 100k racing, which my last 100k race was in 2015. So it was a while. It's been a while.
00:05:27
Speaker
so I'll be just happy to make it to the finish line in one piece and hopefully build up um into some more longer races that year, next year. Yeah, that's understandable. feel like we do have the advantage of they have to come across into summer, essentially, out of their winter, which I feel like if it's a recipe for for your day not going as smoothly as you may may hope.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, unless the guys or the girls are from, you know, Phoenix or something where winter is pretty much like not that crazy. Um, and then again, like Perth to New Zealand, that's an eight hour flight, you know, four hour time difference.
00:06:05
Speaker
So not that easy. Um, but yeah, and that's, I guess that's my best chance ever to get a golden ticket. So I might as well give it a shot. and take it So what, like, how will you plan the rest of this year then from a training perspective? Like are there, are you identifying the area, like the gaps you think you have in your training that you can get before you go super specific? um I think like, you know, my speed is okay, and I'm not going to focus too much on speed.
00:06:32
Speaker
It would be just more about, you know, keep building that endurance and long runs to be able to hopefully run well past five, six hours, which I haven't done for a really long time.
00:06:44
Speaker
I feel pretty comfortable on a runnable 50, 60 K trail course. but then again you know my last 100k race has been a long time ago so um i think i'll just have to work on a bit of volume and long runs have always worked well for me and i think i'm still going to do it in the way that i'll try and get probably a 50 a 60 and a 70k training runs um a few weeks out of the race and yeah right now it's more about getting back into
00:07:15
Speaker
the consistency of key sessions intervals and Tuesday and thresholds on Friday and slowly building up that long run.
Brody's Recovery and Racing Strategy
00:07:23
Speaker
um I do have a 60K race Oman on the 12th of December, which will be a good build up, lead up race, hopefully for the 100K race for Tarawera.
00:07:35
Speaker
But yeah, otherwise I'm just going to try and go volume because I've seen a lot of people do really well lately with very high volume. And I think now with high carb, I've never really tried going like really high volume, a really high volume. So it would also be an interesting way to see how my body adapts to volume key sessions per summer while going really high carb, like, you know, 15 minutes this morning, I had a gel, you know, I'm just gonna go hard on the carbs and hopefully my body can recover quick enough to be able to put in a few good weeks at 200k plus it's gonna be interesting where can punch yourself a golden ticket and then the whole podcast can come and be your crew
00:08:18
Speaker
ah can case you yeah and our way into uh western states i like it brody by yourself how's how's training been getting back over here like you're you're running continuously now yes I finished, I think I did my sort of return to run period, ah finished in about four weeks and that finished with two back-to-back 30-minute runs.
00:08:40
Speaker
um That finished pretty much just before I left so ah from Europe. So last year last week was sort of my first week that wasn't part of the return to, like the strict rehab return to run.
00:08:54
Speaker
um So I'm obviously still building back up slowly and I'm cautious to not sort of quickly overload. um So, yeah, i I just ran four times last week. um I'm trying to build the volume back up.
00:09:06
Speaker
um So that has been more the focus and that'll be the focus probably over the next, yeah, couple of months really, not doing too much intensity or if any.
00:09:17
Speaker
um So, yeah, it's ah it's been going pretty well actually. I'm i'm pretty happy with it. um The Achilles seems to be tolerating this ah return,
00:09:28
Speaker
uh, decent. Um, I've been back in the gym and I'm doing my plyos and all that stuff still. And yeah, seems to be progressing each day. And, and, um, I think I, I wrote something on Instagram, like just as I finished my rehab return to run that, um,
00:09:44
Speaker
Like I'm not having that same trepidation i was probably having earlier in the year of like every run I would go out the door and I would be like, oh, is it going to hurt? Is it not going to hurt? Like where am I going to be at today? Really it was like how much is it going to hurt because it was always going to hurt.
00:09:57
Speaker
Whereas now I'm going out the door not really thinking about it and my my my first five minutes of running whilst I'm probably aware of my Achilles injury I feel like I'm running normally, whereas probably it took me five minutes, ten minutes to get into just a normal running pattern earlier in the year. So, yeah, I think it's in a pretty good spot. um I finished the week doing 75 minutes up in the Dandenongs, up in Fernie with um Kate and Katinka and Anna and one of my friends, Matt, which was just such a nice way to finish the week. And, like, I did 75 minutes earlier.
00:10:33
Speaker
I sort of thought that was the plan. So I stopped, but like I felt like I could have kept going. ah I would have, I think I could have got through to two hours easily, but i'm I'm just cautious of not sort of going from 20 to 30 K weeks to 60, 70.
00:10:46
Speaker
to So I think I ended up with about 48 Ks for the week. So yeah, orll try and be sensible. It'll still sort of be a relatively quick but build back with volume. I've got a couple of races on the schedule just because ah I want to.
00:11:04
Speaker
Probably not the best idea, but there's a couple of reasons behind getting out there and doing them. And then I'll sort of put that behind me and and just focus on getting back to full training.
00:11:17
Speaker
The races that you're doing, are you going to, like, if you it sounds like you kind of have to, or you, you, you, you really want to be there. So like, will you not go for it?
00:11:27
Speaker
Can you do that? Yeah. I don't know. Like ah the reason I'm doing it is like, obviously I'm keen to race. ah Like I'm keen to get back into normality, I guess, which is getting out there and having fun and racing on the trails.
00:11:40
Speaker
um that's not the only that's not like if that was just the reason I wouldn't be racing because I'm um trying to be smart but there is like I don't have to race but there is some uh benefit to me racing with my sponsor um so yeah I will be racing more for that purpose um but obviously I'm excited to get back to racing as well but if it was just the excitement of racing I wouldn't be doing it because it's Whilst it's, I don't think it's really risky. It's more risky than probably needs to happen just for fun.
00:12:11
Speaker
um So, yeah, i'm I'm still, I plan to do two. If the first one, ah don't quite feel it, then I won't. I'm sort of wanting to be sore for a couple of days max and not put myself back more than a couple of days.
00:12:25
Speaker
So if it feels like it's going to be any worse than that, I won't be doing it. um But, yeah, I'm excited to get back out. And the first one is triple tops down in Tassie. in just two weeks so that's why um I'm trying to do somewhat of a ah volume ramp because I have to be able to run probably about two hours.
00:12:42
Speaker
um Triple Tops was like the first trail race I ever did and it's like probably my favorite. Like, it's just, yeah. so So i'm I'm very much looking forward to that. And, yeah, and then we'll see how that goes. And and and and and I've signed up at the moment for the second race, which is GSER 28K.
00:13:00
Speaker
um But, yeah, I won't run it if the first one doesn't go well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's an interesting question as a non-sponsored runner, like it's definitely something that I've heard heard come up a lot of time and other podcasts and the conversations about the pressure, like the, there's obviously the great side of sponsorship because you're sponsored, you're supported, you got team behind you, but then you've got the other side of potentially being incentivized to get back, not necessarily like them pressuring you, but there could be other incentives there to get back to the start line. and Vlad, did you ever have to make those kinds decisions when were with North Face?
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um I think that my whole sponsorship with them for five years was all about doing races to keep them happy. And yeah, at at times I got to choose my own races, but a lot of the times I had to do a lot of North Face races.
00:13:50
Speaker
It's a bit smaller right now, but the North Face series was pretty big around Asia back then. And yeah, I had to do a lot of them. And yeah it's fun at times, but also at times it is, you know, part of it and it's not, you know, as much fun when you are forced to do some races.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah. have my Sorry, go on. No, no, no, go. i was just going to say mine's, um just to clarify, mine's less of it being forced to and I actually have the, um like, it's been great working with my sponsor to sort of, i get to I get to sort of have some input around in these races. So, um yeah, mine's,
00:14:28
Speaker
it's It's still a thing, though, like you're saying there, James, like there is the pressure to do it, not from the sponsor, but from myself more so. um So, yeah, I'm doing it this time. I've done this in the past and I think it's like it's been implicated in my injuries in both, like both at the end of 2023 and the end of 2024. I put myself in a hole and probably both of them was for this reason um but I sort of tried to not just make it to the event. I tried to make it and train to the event.
00:15:01
Speaker
So this time I say I'm being sensible because I'm just trying to make it that I can run the distance and I'm not focusing on fitness at all. um So whatever my fitness is on the day will be, I just want to get out there and finish the race.
00:15:15
Speaker
um So I'm not training ah to race I'm training to sort of finish and hoping that my history and my fitness is good enough to still have a decent performance so I'm hoping this time I'm doing it smart but again there is a risk with it and after this time I'm not intending to do it again in the future it's sort of a ah last chance it's a good opportunity to do it now so well I feel the risk is worth it but then I'm sort of stepping out of that mindset and just full focus on the body and Come join me on the sidelines and just watch and choose the event. That's great. Yes. yeah um Cool. All right. Well, hopefully if you are at GSC, I'll get a catch up, which is always good. So from that perspective, I hope you're on the start line.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, and and like it feels good at the moment. I'm i'm pretty confident that I can – I'm confident I could run two hours on the weekend, so I'm confident I can run two hours in and two weeks, and then GSR is another two weeks after that. It's probably like a two-hour, 40- to three-hour race, so it's going to be a bit harder and a bit faster running probably, whereas triple tops are so technical that – Yeah, it's sort of, you get away with a bit of fitness and you probably get away with a little bit of conditioning ah because it's more about skill, I guess. And hopefully I can hang on to my skill from the past. Yeah. What's what's it been like getting back into the the work and real life after so long away?
00:16:42
Speaker
I'm actually loving it. Like i missed I'm such a um a bit of a creature of routine and I like I'm in a positive position that I sort of enjoy going to my job. I work casually as a physio, so I get to choose when I work, but it also means that I sort of look forward to going to work as well.
00:16:58
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. yeah so i'm back into the hospital physio work and i'm still doing some online work as well so yeah it's a nice little mix and yeah getting around her probably the harder thing last week was catching up with everyone socially so that was the draining thing yeah are you are you like actively trying to increase coaching as well at the moment or are you kind of like busy with life uh like i'm always willing to take on people i'm not like ah ah I sort of go off word of mouth at the moment. At some point I think I will probably try and expand and I'll do a bit more of a push with social media and other methods of getting more athletes. But at this stage, like I can take on more athletes and I'm um' keen to if people want to do it. But, um yeah, I'm not actively sort of going after people. So, yeah, if anyone's interested, they can always drop me a line. But, um yeah, hopefully I'll expand that more in the future, like my efforts.
00:17:53
Speaker
um because I'd be keen to do more of the socials and i I like, I really like the stuff that you do, James, on yours with like some of the sharing people's stories, but also sharing sort of stuff related to coaching. And yeah, so at some point in the future, I'm keen to lean on that a bit more, but i'm I think I'm going to sort of get myself settled again and and then, um yeah, maybe do that in the future.
00:18:15
Speaker
I should know that generally was not meant to be a plug. That was just a genuine- We did it. We did it. It was a cheeky double plug. We plugged both of us. Yeah. As long as it comes back back and just, yeah, just go by Bix at the same time. it will fuel your coaching and training.
00:18:30
Speaker
Like everyone. Yeah, exactly. It works. It's fine. We're we're in control, right? Yeah.
James's Recovery Journey
00:18:35
Speaker
All right. And then from my perspective, i I think, yeah, last week I just had a MRI done, which was I was hoping would say I was all clear to start my return to run from today. Unfortunately, that came back that there was still some mild results.
00:18:54
Speaker
bone stress, which is obviously quite frustrating. We can't yet access the images, which is also quite annoying. They're waiting for the the people that did it to grant my practitioner access. But yeah, sounds like another couple of weeks before I can start the return to run. But I've also been cleared more to lean into the biking now and still still with the gym but it's it's a weird weird thing like i fully prepared myself for that to be what like the outcome not that i was expecting it to come back as still showing a mild amount of body stress but you never want to be so committed to being set free and then just pulled straight back but It's definitely, it's more it's but it's more that kind of, that worry about, well, I've been off for 12 weeks, have done everything right, and it's still not fixed. It's like, how long is this going to keep going for?
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's and it's an interesting topic actually because I think I heard you talking about the re-imaging last week and I'm by no means an expert on this, so don't take my um my my thoughts here as gospel.
00:19:57
Speaker
um But, yeah, often often re-imaging is not done and I guess in your case it makes sense. um But, yeah, I think you you also want to take the imaging with a grain of salt when it comes to that because ah the healing of a bone looks similar sometimes to like the bone stress to some extent like it it'd be good to look at the images i guess and get into it whereas the radiologist is just reporting on what they see uh so hopefully you and your team can look at the images a bit better and and then see like do we actually do we think that this is actually representing where we'd expect to look in the healing journey or is it sort of behind where we thought because like i've re-imaged my stress fracture
00:20:38
Speaker
uh when I had it um you're back in 2022 so I had like eight weeks off did a return to run uh did a like a race pretty soon after my return to run because the timing um and then I was not super happy with how my foot felt so I ah sort of pushed my physio to get a MRI even though he was saying we we shouldn't and then on the MRI it showed that there's still bone edema there, which is well a lot of how we define bone stress.
00:21:09
Speaker
um And there was actually some bone edema in other bones surrounding that bone. yeah And we didn't even change management. Like I took a week down and then we sort of just built back in. we sort of just So, yeah, I probably in in retrospect didn't need that MRI, but you always sort of feel like I know people sort of want to get that check, but sometimes it's not that useful.
00:21:30
Speaker
But I think in your case, like, lean into your team, see what they say. like Yours is a different case with you with the stuff the other stuff that's been going on. sos It's also on your side worth being extra careful.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, and like we didn't do it the first time around because of everything that you just said. If you do do with things right, you so know the timeline that Bone's going to take and when it's safe to get back in. and just yeah Unfortunately, there's other stuff going on that which we didn't know about at the time. but it's um I think that Luke, my sports car is looking after it was very much of that mindset, but just like until he can actually physically see the images doesn't want to say, ah I think were we're okay. They're going again.
00:22:10
Speaker
um but i guess that's a note for anyone looking at and MRIs or getting scans of any injury. um Just remember that the radiologist is going to comment on absolutely everything and ah very healthy people will have or people that are running with no niggles at all will often have something showing up on a MRI somewhere. um So Vlad's probably got, he's probably full of things, but he's running 180k weeks.
00:22:39
Speaker
So like, yeah, you got to take the imaging with a grain of salt and it's best to sort of talk to your practitioners with, talk through it with your practitioners and correlate it to your your, where you're at with symptoms and all that sort of stuff as well.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah, but it's still, it's kind of a nice because I'm allowed to do more, doing a lot more plyometrics. I feel like Luke's decided that he wants to kill my legs now that I'm allowed to load them more. I walked out the gym today and just like everything felt like they were either hitting my quads or my adductors and I was like wobbling out of the gym.
00:23:10
Speaker
So it kind of feels good to work hard. I'm probably not going to thank him too much in the morning, but yeah, it's hopefully, hopefully we're not too far away, which will be nice. Yeah, and it's good to be get back into doing something or particularly I think it's like after these times, it's nice.
00:23:24
Speaker
We sort of like punishing ourselves. So it's nice to sort of start feel like you're working hard. So yeah, it's nice to move through those steps. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So but otherwise, nothing too much is on on here. is it's It's funny when you're not not training too much, like incredibly busy, but Not particularly interesting podcasting topics, from I don't think. ah Okay, one of the things I wanted to do today, which is like there's been quite a lot of stuff going on at the moment like in the sport, whether it's directly with trail running or it's more like adjacent, just the sport in general, that I was curious, or I think brings everyone attention, but also just curious get you guys...
00:24:07
Speaker
perspectives on. So the first one, this came up with a conversation i was having with somebody, we were talking about like race calendars for 2026 and they mentioned the snowy trail 50K and that it is the national short trail distance championships. i think the short trail is 30 to 60. I think that's the 40 to 60. That's the, the, the categorization.
00:24:26
Speaker
And it kind of sparked this conversation of how much does that actually matter? Like are the elites targeting it? But also is that a draw card for the rest of the field to go and look at it? Like GPT this year and next year is the 100 mile championships. And unless I've missed anything. Like I have not really seen any communication coming out about it being the 100 mile national championships. I've seen a lot about it being the world trail majors and the people that are going there. and And that's not a knock on single track. It's just something interesting.
00:24:57
Speaker
I put out a poll on our stories, which thank you to everyone that voted. We had a a lot of responses, which was really cool to see. And it was essentially asking, are you paying attention or specifically entering an event in 2026 because it's a national championship?
00:25:11
Speaker
um of the basically 100 votes, 86% said no, which I think we could have guessed. But I'm just curious, Vlad yourself has been doing this the longest out of all us, I think, was especially in the the trail space.
00:25:27
Speaker
Does the national championships have any weight for you at the moment? I would have to say that it's slowly getting, you know, a bigger piece of this picture. um ah Like, you know, looking back a couple of years ago where you know, there was still kind of an announcer race that is the national championship. I don't think too many people really cared about it.
00:25:48
Speaker
But I think with Asia Pacific trail champs now every second year, you know, some of those results could help get you on the team.
00:25:59
Speaker
um So I think they will like right now, probably not yet, but in the next few years, hopefully they will have a bit more weight um and get a bit more attention and get people, you know,
00:26:11
Speaker
getting around them and racing them and making it like a real national champs where most of the better runners do show up for that. um But again, like, you know Australia is so big that, you know, I got to fly five hours to get there. And, you know, even if you live in Brisbane, it's not that easy getting to the snowy mountains. And, you know, it's a bit tough in Australia. So I think it would take a while before it's big enough for people to travel to, you know, every single year.
00:26:39
Speaker
Do you think it has to mean like give you like give you access, like for example, to the Asia-Pacific team? Because you see so many countries that have, like you win the national champs, you go into the Wales team or you go into the whatever.
00:26:49
Speaker
i don't think many people have another team, but do you think it's going to take something like that for people to really go and start respecting it? Yeah, absolutely. Even if it's only one spot, um I think more people will show up.
00:27:02
Speaker
And I think that, you know, it just put a bit more, attention towards it as well, because if in the selection policy, you know they kind of go, well, there's a spot in national champs, people will know, right, let me see what, when is the national champs, where are they, what it's a course like and see if I can give this a shot.
00:27:21
Speaker
um But yeah, like you said, I think it's not getting much attention right now. um And then it's a little bit more attention for people to kind of, you know, make room in their racing calendar and attend those races. It is tricky over here with how spread out it is. I also think like the race selection itself is interesting.
00:27:41
Speaker
was like Lonely Mountain was the long trail that I think there's a hundred K that's in orange. How do you guys, had you heard of that event? As the mountain running champs? No, sorry. like Like the long trail. So it was, I think it Lonely Mountain, a hundred K. I think it was hundred K.
00:27:58
Speaker
I've heard of it because ah it used to be a, I don't know if it still is, but used to be a Lasso, Lasso Thiever event. And um so therefore they got some of their athletes there. So I think Matt Crean's been once or twice.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, okay. but that's that's how I'd heard of it. But I wouldn't say it's a highly attended ah elite, from an elite side of things. It might be a big event, but I don't know of many people who have raced it.
00:28:24
Speaker
i guess i was That's kind of my my question. I know next year they've already announced, yeah, GPT will have it again and Buffalo Stampede will be the 100k champs for next year.
00:28:36
Speaker
Snowy's trail in, guess, Threadbow, Crackenback, that's the the short trail. But and I just like ah look at them and I think, are we really targeting them or are you going to go like if you're looking at Snowy to the 50K, are you going to do that or are you going to go to race Tauera in the 100K or go to Tauera and race the 50K instead and choose the competitive field because it's Tauera?
00:28:57
Speaker
Or are you going to not race the 50K there and try and go to either Kanani or go to Buffalo? There's a lot of other events you could be doing and probably for reasons that outweigh being a national champion that maybe doesn't mean a whole heap.
00:29:13
Speaker
There's a lot of, i could talk about the Australian champs for a long time as ah something, but we could talk about that with a lot of things in trail running in Australia. The first thing I think is like, what is the actual goal of the Australian champs? I don't think Autra or whoever's putting it, i don't I don't know what their goal for is it? Because is it to find the best trail runner in Australia?
00:29:34
Speaker
If, If so, I don't know if they're actually going after it that way because that requires at least some communication and some pushing that message out to the best ah runners in Australia if that's what they're trying to do.
00:29:48
Speaker
If they want to use it for selection, then they need to release their selection criterias early. if they want to increase the profile of the sport, then they probably need to offer some ah prize money to attract the rate the the best runners there. Like there's there's a whole lot of questions and I feel like at the moment it's like, oh, we need to have a national championship.
00:30:08
Speaker
Who wants to have it? any Any race that puts their hands up, there's probably not many that put their hands up and they just give it to them. ah Whereas I think there probably could be a lot more strategic thinking about like what is the goal of the national championship? What are we trying what are they actually trying to achieve?
00:30:24
Speaker
um And then actually maybe going after some races and saying, hey, we think you'd be a good option for this. I think that's probably the better way to do it. Um, Because, yeah, like there's no point having a championship if it doesn't serve some sort of purpose.
00:30:39
Speaker
And at the moment, you would think the purpose of a national championship is to find the best person at that sport in the country. But if you can't get those people to turn up and you can't get the best 20 to turn up, which is probably never going to happen, you've got to think about what other purposes you might have for it. And therefore, you might also secondary sort of achieve that goal.
00:31:01
Speaker
but there probably needs to be other purposes around it. If you guys think about which race are you going to turn up to, let's just say the 50k distance, in Australia right now, which race do you think has the most weighting behind it?
00:31:14
Speaker
UTA? Yeah, UTA has to have the most weighting. But again, it probably doesn't quite serve as a national championship because UTMB is a sort of world player it's not a it's not a sort of australian run company that uh or organization like it's harder to make that the national championships because that race has other focuses so you can't really make it the national championship because it has the focus of being part of the utmb world series it's a qualify it's now a major there's prize money there's all of that sort of stuff yes it probably is the most depth race but it probably doesn't fit it but apart from uta and maybe utk
00:31:55
Speaker
You could probably choose any race in Australia because they're run by Australian organisations who could make the national championship they're one of their main focuses of the event.
00:32:06
Speaker
And I think they can start with something very, very basic, even if it's not a selection race or anything like that. if If there is a bit more attention to a national championship, you know, just from the outside, people will show up. And even if the race director would have a look at ITRA or UTMB scores and send an email to the top 30 guys and girls in whatever category the race is and go, hey, here's a free entry.
00:32:32
Speaker
You know, we, you know, we'd love to see you there. I think that that will get some people on. And we... Yeah, free entry. Free entry goes a long way. They don't even have to go to the point of providing support. Probably providing support would be even better, but like the free entry goes a long way.
00:32:46
Speaker
Well, was going to say actually as well, because then do you think that providing support, does that fall on the race directors back? or And I know this is not everybody in that top 30 category, but should that fall on the sponsor or the brand partners back to get you there?
00:33:00
Speaker
I think that's so sure yeah that's the bigger kind of conversation. And that's the bigger issue that leads to all of this is just that that ah trail running doesn't function as a sport in In Australia, it functions as a ah a group of separate events.
00:33:16
Speaker
ah So there's no, like to have a national championship, it works well if you have clubs and state organisations and some flow up into a national championship.
00:33:28
Speaker
But trail running in Australia is a bunch of private-owned events across the country. So it's like that's the issue we probably need to also work towards alongside at the same time. there's The membership base doesn't really – ah is not really suggestive of the actual participants. Like probably what, 2% of trail running participants are actually a member of Autra or something like that. I don't know what it would be, but like there's not many Autra members and there's a lot of people doing at least one trail run in the year.
00:33:59
Speaker
um So, Yeah, I think these two things go hand in hand because, like, yes, a national championship in in athletics makes sense because people have to ah they have to make it to the national championships. They have to qualify through their state um and then they go to the national championship. So there's some sort of stepwise progression.
00:34:20
Speaker
And it's also run by the organisation. All the events are run by the national organisation or the state organisations, whereas the events in Australia are run by private companies. So it's just a bit more complicated and I think it's going to take a few years to figure it out um and it's not easy. So and i'm not i'm not I'm not sort of trying to be negative towards Autra and what they're doing because I think they're trying, but it like they're they're in a hard position and it's going to take a little bit of time and buy in from probably a lot of different people over time to make it happen.
00:34:54
Speaker
I think it's also hard when you're seeing online and your friends are in different countries in Europe and seeing like how well organized the national champs are there and how much weight there is in there. And you kind of go like, wow, we should be having this in Australia. It's not very hard. and you know that I think that makes it even harder that you know the national champs have like zero weight here while a lot of my friends put national champs as one of the main races for the year.
00:35:21
Speaker
Yeah, there has been some... Probably some national championship events in the past that have been worked actually quite well, and they're probably the mountain running ones. um I think before I even went to them, I'd heard of them, so that's a good start.
00:35:36
Speaker
Before I even started trail running properly, I'd heard of like the the ones in 2019 that were in Queensland. And I don't even know how I heard about them, but I just knew of them. And the one in 2022, whilst there was not that many participants, it was probably, this was in Canberra at Mount Tennant, there was probably like 100 people there, but there was a point there was a good top end.
00:35:56
Speaker
ah So I think like in the in the men, just because I remember the people who were running, it was like, me, Ian Best, no, maybe not Ian Best, Mark Bourne, Leo Pedersen, Ben Dufus, Mike Carroll, Andrew Gattenby. So there was a bunch of, like a lot of those people were Canberra-based, but like there was a good pointy field and that probably was maybe because it was sort of leading up to World Champs later in the year as well. So I think it does <unk>s going to trip The easiest way to do it, to attract some sort of attention to it, is to link it to it some sort of international team.
00:36:33
Speaker
And that's probably the first step. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. i I'm glad I asked the question because is it's just interesting. like You have these national championships and they they essentially... unless you really value the title of being national champion, but then how much does that mean if the top of the top 30 guys and girls on the field, one or two have turned up?
00:36:54
Speaker
Like, I know you can only race who turns up on the day, but like how much weight does that event actually have? Yeah, exactly. That's what, that's what I mean. Like you can't, in my mind as an ah elite, you can't be a national, like you can be a national champion, but it doesn't really feel like a national champion if you're not racing the best in the country.
00:37:10
Speaker
Cause like, that That can happen at other events, like and that happens a lot at other events, and I'll go after those wins. But like to to call yourself the national champion, you want to know that you are the best, or like at least most of the best turned up to race you, I think. so like otherwise So therefore, I'm not that interested in going to a race just because it's called the national championship, because...
00:37:32
Speaker
I probably, like, unless I know that there's going to be a great field there and I can actually be proud of my achievement, um then there's probably not that much point for me going. Fair enough. Yeah, I agree. I'm not shitting on anyone that said there'd been national champion in the past and well done to you. And, like like, I don't mean it in that way, but personally, like, if I'm going to call myself national champion and be able to be proud of that, I want to have raced at least 75 50 at least 50 of the best people in the country yeah yeah i completely agree i think that's where what we saw with some of the golden trail series especially 2024's version and we saw like the the depth it was if you won that race it really meant something like whether it was warby or it was the finals like kmr coastal like they had a real weight to it because of the depth of it and so Yeah, it'll be interesting. Like, given the... Okay, let's look at next next year.
00:38:26
Speaker
Vlad, let's assume that you aren't doing Tower Era. Just put that aside for one sec. The Snowys Trail, the 50k, would you go make the trip to go there because it's the national championships now?
00:38:39
Speaker
And then would you make the trip to go there if you did get... If Asia Pacific said, we are strongly weighting the performance from there. So it's not a direct entry, but they're saying we care. Yeah, probably. Yeah, if I was healthy, would go.
00:38:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, like like Brodie said, a free he entry even plays is ah a long way, like, you know, when you're paying for this whole trip yourself. So, um and I think that- Or even just looked upon favorably. But if there are also, if like, I think if you think there is like guaranteed position, then good, like, even the selectors are still going to look at the people who came second, third and fourth, because it's generally probably going to be a competitive race.
00:39:19
Speaker
um So, yeah, i think it's a ah think it does make it attractive. Did Five Peaks draw you at all, Vlad, this year because it was the national championships?
00:39:30
Speaker
Not really. I think more about me wanting to do a longer race. um And that worked out well. You know, being in South Australia as well that, you know, I've only done like a handful of races there before. And my goal lot this year was to race, you know, a bit more in Australia.
00:39:48
Speaker
So that kind of worked well. I think that me and Toby did have like a good battle. But like you said, that was pretty much just the two of us and not much more after that. I mean, amazing race. I would love to do that race again. But it was just a shame that, you know, on only like literally me and Toby had probably done it to the travel for that race, you know, in the men's field.
00:40:11
Speaker
um So yeah, that was a bit of a shame. I also think with that one, though if that one, even if it wasn't like ah there's a position up for grads for world champs, even if it was just within the period, I think people can join the dots and say, OK, if it's within a period and I know the selection criteria has been released, it's within the period. I think people know that the national championships will carry some weight with selectors or they should because it probably does.
00:40:34
Speaker
um So I think you would have had other people turn up. um I was considering it and then when I realized it was out of the period I was like well I'm not going to do it and I couldn't run anyway but like if it was in the period I definitely would have considered it and I think there would have been and other people that would have got down for it.
00:40:50
Speaker
But it is going to be in the period for the Asia-Pacific. um Yeah so maybe med butt but is there a selection criteria? No one knows it's within the period. Yeah, no, you're right. So you have to know it's in the period.
00:41:03
Speaker
I think with the way things have been going for the past few years, we can just you just have to be you just have to take those risks and kind of go, yeah, they probably or might be. And sometimes you just have to do it and hope that it is going to be in the period.
00:41:17
Speaker
But yeah, you're right. We don't know. And it's not well communicated for us to know what we should be doing to try and get into those teams. Because I'm really enjoying this. I'm just going to keep pushing this rabbit hole a little bit further. Yeah.
00:41:29
Speaker
From a selection criteria perspective, how long of a window do you think these racers should have for you to be able to submit qualifications? Is it 12 months? is it 18, 24? What do you think, Vlad?
00:41:40
Speaker
think at least nine months would be like a good amount, actually. No, nine months would be good. Okay, so you you think we should shorten the window? i think there should be... at No, no, you should know about the races at least nine months in advance, sorry.
00:41:54
Speaker
but Sorry, i I mean in the sense of like, if you did five peaks in 2025, should that qualify you for age-specific 2026? Sorry. Yes, if it was outside the other um window for the world champs, if that makes sense.
00:42:07
Speaker
I think that at least like a word like an Australian champ championship race should qualify you to one of them one of the two, which, you know, they work well because it's every second year.
00:42:19
Speaker
um So we do have an international event to be selected for every single year now, which is a good thing because a few years ago we didn't. um But yeah, I think at least it should be good enough for one of them. But I think just going back to my first answer is I think that we should be we should know about them at least nine nine months in advance that this will be a qualifying race.
00:42:42
Speaker
Or that will be the period. Yeah, well, that's like, to me, that's common sense. Like even now, we know that South Africa is going to be the world champs in 2027. So to me, it should not take us another 18 months to get a qualification like, um policy out and then give you like three months to make a decision what you're going to do. or Even not about South Africa, even about China next year for the Asia Pacific champs.
00:43:07
Speaker
Like, we should be getting some information, hopefully, like and in November, like 12 months in front of the race kind of going, you know, that's what we're thinking about. The period will, you know, come out with the final numbers or dates or races, know,
00:43:21
Speaker
by January and then yeah you know at least people can be prepared and and start planning the years because you know it's not a 1500 meter race you know if you are doing a 100k race there's a lot more time in the lead up to it in the recovery from it um so we need bigger windows Yeah, I think i think the the performance window they should be looking at can be up to two years. Like, that's fine. But you'd also, you don't need to have done the race before the selection. Like, you could look at those things retrospectively. And I think, like, having a big window helps for injuries and that sort of stuff, especially in in trail races where it takes a long time to prepare for an event.
00:43:59
Speaker
Yeah. But, yeah, the same thing is, Vlad. Like, these races take a long time to prepare for. ah Like, i I work with orienteering and I do this stuff with orienteering Australia in terms of writing selection policies and and publishing them. And we...
00:44:15
Speaker
have a deadline to meet every year which is about nine months out from our major competition but it's also three months before our first selection race and if you think of trail running you might be doing your selection race which you've chosen because yourself because we don't have dictated ones that might be six months before so you need to you need to know a bit you nearly need to know six months before that so like 12 months out is probably to me is like a minimum we should be aiming for. But the tricky thing is, and I know this from my work with orienteering, is you need to have the information from the organisers as well. So...
00:44:47
Speaker
It's sort of a balance between the two, but at least some open communication with the athletes of when they're expecting a policy, that sort of stuff would be quite useful um so that they can at least be, like Vlad said, maybe letting people know that there's going to be something ready to go in January um and they can sort of make their decisions then. So they don't enter their races now and then January go, oh, actually, I want to go to that race and that race or something like that.
00:45:13
Speaker
Especially when you consider the amount of travel that we have to do to go to races. Like if you lock something in, you bought flights, maybe they're not refundable. It's quite a significant financial investment you might have completely detour in. Do you think they should say, okay this is the national champs, this gives you a ticket, for example, or it gives you very heavy waiting.
00:45:29
Speaker
But these are the other five events that we also wait because of their known competitiveness, for example. Yeah, yeah, probably. Like that's probably a middle ground between actually saying this is the selection race.
00:45:40
Speaker
yeah And I think saying this is a selection race is quite hard in trail running because of where people live and they're also the private nature of the events and sponsorships and prize monies and all that sort of stuff. But if you say, look, these are the races we think are relevant to asia pacific champs next year um you can do something outside of these races if you want to feel free to but these are the ones that we think are relevant um so that would give it at least people give some people some guidance because people who trying to make the team might not know what they're supposed to be racing especially new people who don't know who they're who should they talk to like they don't know who their competitors are like i can message vlad and say hey vlad what are you what are you thinking about running and i might go to the same race um
00:46:23
Speaker
Whereas people who are breaking into the sport aren't going to know, aren't going to have those connections and that sort of stuff. So having more information about, yeah, which races are good. I think that's at a good middle ground.
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah. And that's also why you listen to the People's Who's podcast because we'll help you find all your information out. it Maybe. We'll try. One thing I am excited about next year, and it's funny because I'm not excited about any of those other national championships, but I am excited about the mountain running championships.
00:46:50
Speaker
Because one, I think the mountain running championships is easy to get a bunch of people to because it's a shorter race. So you can be preparing for a different race. You can have long guys like Matt Cran come down and run it and you can have short guys that only do short races do it.
00:47:03
Speaker
um you can have everyone there because it's not going to take that much out of you. So, yeah, I think mountain running championships really excites me because it's not going to and something of blow anyone's season apart.
00:47:14
Speaker
And also I know Kmart such a great event. The course I think that they've chosen for it is going to be perfect for that sort of mountain running distance. um pretty fast running in places technical in places good amount of climb good amount of descending like it's it's going to be a good race if a good competition is there like i could see a really exciting race if if we get five to ten really strong runners in the men and the women i'm just going to say this because it still really pisses me off i don't understand why buffalo stampede and canoni mountain run have to be on the same weekend
00:47:46
Speaker
I think you've got to take that up with the, uh, the, uh, RDs maybe. Oh, no, I like, I, I know. and but I'm also like, I'm just going to voice it because it's just, yeah good it it shouldn't, it shouldn't happen to exclude UTMB races and essentially the two most competitive, probably like with Warby at the start of the year.
00:48:10
Speaker
they're on the same bloody weekend. Yeah, probably like pre-UTA, those two probably are. Like Buffalo is probably the most and then KMR is probably the second. If KMR wasn't in Tasmania, it potentially would be.
00:48:24
Speaker
um Yeah, i I also don't get it. They seem to be happy now. Like I know there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and they were trying to work it out and then lot now they seem to just be content having it on the same weekend, which, yeah, it's It's frustrating for us, um but I guess what can we do about it?
00:48:42
Speaker
Say something on the podcast. ah Yeah, oh true. we're good for We are – and that's the thing. We're good friends with both Singletrack and KMR as events and organisers, and we love both of the events.
00:48:54
Speaker
Please just separate because especially with, like, KMR being ah the mountain running champs, you could have someone doing a short race literally the weekend before doing something at Buffalo.
00:49:08
Speaker
And vice versa, if the if Buffalo came first, someone could do the 10K, and the 10K has been competitive in the last few years, and then they could go to Kmart the following weekend and do the 25K or the ultra.
00:49:20
Speaker
I know they're sort of like, oh, well, maybe we don't actually – Like it doesn't matter if we're weekend weeks apart because people are still going to choose one. But I think you will still have some people going to – like there's potential that you could. I know Matt Crean's done ah both when they were separate.
00:49:37
Speaker
He did the VK and then went to Buffalo and did something. I think he did the multi-day. like he Yeah, he probably did the Grand Slam. I think he did. But like there is potential that you can you can do that even if you're not Matt Crean.
00:49:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The best one one event I would like to see get bigger is the 10k at Buffalo. It's fun course. And you're right, you easily back it up. A quick break in the show to thank Bix.
00:50:02
Speaker
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00:50:15
Speaker
whereas the berry has 200 milligrams. Both make them perfect for the conditions we have in Australia, whereas most gels on the market do not have sodium within them. What Bix has done here is take the recipe for the gels that work so well, that 1.8 ratio that is very, very friendly on the stomach, and added a soft, subtle, but very tasty twist that you can dial in your race day and your training nutrition to that extra fine detail.
00:50:39
Speaker
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00:50:56
Speaker
Okay. All right. I feel like we've done that one well. Got into some nuances there. I'm going to... I had had three three topics I wanted to to chat about today. One was the national champs. One is just a bit of a Strava versus Garmin. I just find this one hilarious.
00:51:11
Speaker
And the third is Salomon and them sponsoring the Olympic bid. The fact that it's 2032 in Brisbane is what they want to get to. I think that last one we should leave for maybe next week, considering we're already at 50 minutes.
00:51:22
Speaker
And that could be another half an hour detour. got you guys happy with that yeah i'm happy with that yeah we we we we probably want to put our time and we want to sort of do our due diligence on that so we're going to give us 20 minutes yeah yeah that's fair and so the straffer versus garmin if you've been following her along like the one of one of the the youtubers i listen to a lot is dc raymaker who writes a lot but i find it he's very good at breaking this stuff down when i first saw the Strava was suing Garmin because of heat segments um and also I think segments as well.
00:51:56
Speaker
So the heat map and the segments. But this is on patents that were put in like, I think at least 10 years ago, maybe even 15 years ago. There's the whole thing about maybe because Strava's going public, trying to boost boost their their share price, etc.
00:52:10
Speaker
And then about two weeks later or so, Strava's now gone, oh actually no, we're going to completely drop this. And it also kind of all started because Garmin was going to ask them just to put like Garmin as the, I'm not techie enough, but when your Garmin sends data to Strava, it needs to say like from Garmin essentially, or have that little tag on it now, which is fair enough. Like it's your data through Garmin that Strava then use.
00:52:32
Speaker
And it made me think about, i heard someone say like the impact that could make on Strava is if Garmin just shuts off their connection, Strava could go out of business really quickly. And then I was like, okay, well, i'm going to use the stories. I'm going to see what people do actually use for their watches because I don't ah do either of you guys have a watch sponsor?
00:52:49
Speaker
No, not anymore. Cool. So the info from a coaching perspective, and specifically because I use training peaks, Garmin has by far got the best software like their connections to training piece and to other apps is just far supersedes. I have a chorus and When I first got it with TrainingPeaks maybe three years ago, it barely even spoke.
00:53:09
Speaker
Apple is completely useless with TrainingPeaks. Samsung is completely useless. Suunto has got a lot better. I'd probably say they're the one that feel like they're emerging the best with this. um But i it's because of that and because it directly impacts how I coach, I recommend people to get Garmin. Siobhan has Garmin. She's got one of the new 4Runners. I used to have it.
00:53:30
Speaker
yeah i do i do think... they are above the rest. But 73% of people that voted sit garmin twenty percent said 20% said Coros, 7% said Suntos, and then one person said other. So just one person, and which I just ah just thought was really interesting because then, yeah, if Garmin had said, well, screw you, Strava, if you're going to sue us, we're just going to cut this connection.
00:53:50
Speaker
73% of their potential paying customers for Strava could have just disappeared because then they're going to use their watch more than their app. would be my guess. I was interested to see how that landed. I guess Strava pulled out because they had more to lose maybe, but I don't know. I think there was a risk that Garmin also lost a bunch of customers over time um because where do they go if they're not on Strava?
00:54:14
Speaker
People like Strava for a different reason than they don't like Strava because they use it to um see how far they've run or their heart rate or that sort of stuff. They use it because it's the way of sharing their running. Like it's running social media. There isn't another running in social media. so And having like, yes, you can still use it without the Garmin connection, but it would have been a pain.
00:54:36
Speaker
um So, yeah, i think I think both would have suffered. It's interesting to know who would have suffered most, and I think Strava's probably went, no, it's too risky. um But yeah, I don't know. I still think there probably would something the other way because like, even though you say like, I don't use training peaks, so I don't know that. um I use Coros at the moment. I've used Garmin in the past. I've used Sunto. I've actually used all of them.
00:55:00
Speaker
To me, they're just the same thing. They're all, they all have the same product and they all have the same like beginner, intermediate, advanced, maybe some slightly different features, but overall they're very similar.
00:55:13
Speaker
They're at similar price points. Um, Like I don't think people are loyal to Garmin. I think Garmin is just the leader, so everyone has Garmins. But if there was a reason to leave Garmin, then maybe you would have people leaving. I don't i don't know if that's – like I'd be very happy to leave Garmin because I can't connect to Strava anymore, but I've also already got a Chorus, so I don't know if I would actually do that because it's very expensive to get a new watch as well.
00:55:38
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't know how that happens, but I think there probably was some small risk to Garmin, but i don't maybe it wasn't that big. I think there was also something about Garmin haven't lost a lawsuit in a decade or something. or Yeah. very very They're a big company. They're very good at what they do.
00:55:57
Speaker
They're in a lot of different places as well. and where stravas sort of You could think of Strama as a gimmick compared to an actual product. But I mean, Strava is going public in in a few weeks, right? So, I mean, they could...
00:56:11
Speaker
could be a pretty big company um soon. and and asia Bring out some hardware pretty much. Yeah, it could bring out wearables. Yeah. Yeah. Which I don't think is that hard today to develop a wearable like when Garmin was launching, you know, and GPS watches 10 years ago and 15 years ago. There's a lot of small brands that are coming out of China right now with pretty good watches. I mean, I get to see it a little bit with my Hong Kong connection, um but I see um probably there people ah not just like free brands connected.
00:56:46
Speaker
There's if you look at the Hong Kong running market, there's probably 10 different or 12 different brands that people actually use. um Obviously, there's the main players, but there's I feel like it's a lot easier today for that technology and you know coming out with a watch. So maybe Strava has been working on something and they're like, yeah let's um that's clear stuff. Test the waters. Yeah. yeah then and Because it seems absolutely ridiculous what they tried to do.
00:57:14
Speaker
So there must maybe it's like a feint or something. I don't know. if Maybe there's some other something that... Cloak and daggers we didn't see happening. Actually, on that flight, I saw Ruth Cross share a story today of a new watch from a company I'd never heard of. So and so that company, that time i'm as time sorry i totally forgot the name um Timex, something like that, they actually gave me a free watch probably about seven or eight years ago when I lived in Hong Kong. Okay.
00:57:42
Speaker
um So the Hong Kong office met with me for a coffee, actually gave me that watch, showed me the product. It probably wasn't ready back then to be as good as as a chorus or a Garmin.
00:57:53
Speaker
um And I didn't like accept the free watch, but obviously right now they are. And it is pretty funny because Ruth used to work for Garmin for many years in Taiwan. um So it's actually, you know, they would have offered her a really good deal um for her to, you know,
00:58:11
Speaker
not be with Garmin anymore because yeah she she was with them as an employee for a very long time when she lived in Taiwan. Yes, and maybe we see some other products as well out of the back of this in the future. like i mean chorus I mean, Chorus, I remember Chorus being sold in Hong Kong for 150 US s dollars. And before they kind of went out to the rest of the world, that was, you know, that new hot watch in Hong in hong Kong that a lot of people got onto.
00:58:37
Speaker
And in my mind, that was always the price of a Chorus. But then a few years later, I like looked at prices of watches because I needed a new watch. And i was like, wow, Chorus is the same price as a Garmin. and It was a bit strange when you know they were selling it for literally $100, $150 when they launched.
00:58:52
Speaker
hundred hundred and fifty dollars um you know when they just launched Yeah. Yeah. it's When I was doing like a bit of research and all this as well, I was curious to see like the market share and it's pretty hard to find like the GPS watch market share. It was pretty admirable that Garmin was the leader in this, but then it came up on like the more generic smartwatch that most people would have from their their brands. And Huawei has just surpassed Apple as the leading in there. So it's sort of Huawei, Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi.
00:59:25
Speaker
um which is apparently the fastest growing one alongside Huawei. So I'm curious to see if these brands, like we know that Apple has a smartwatch, they have a theoretical ultra or a tri-hour watch, I think.
00:59:35
Speaker
I'm curious to see like where, because they have so much more money to invest into this, if they actually value it and they see the demand in the market, is it going to kind of, is that interest going to come across? b Yeah, so it's it's interesting if like a brand like Garmin has sort of kept those,
00:59:50
Speaker
phone brands away for many years like apple doesn't seem to have gone all in when they probably could have uh but it was like garmin held the market and it's allowed these other purely watch brands to sort of come up through um yeah it's interesting one i i wouldn't even think about getting like a non-sports watch brand no i don't know i don't know much about the phone watch brands to be honest i think I think also something that people um could think about if they are looking for a watch and want to save some money is to do some search online and see if they can get like a Chinese brand watch because I think they will be able to get very similar products for half the price.
01:00:32
Speaker
You know, the technology that coming out of China right now and not just watches and everything is getting a lot better. We we see it with cars in Australia. um So I think, yeah, you can. can definitely kind of do a bit of research and see if we can get a cheaper watch out of out of China now that hasn't entered the Australian market yet um because a lot of them it takes a while till they go international and a lot of the time it's more online and closer countries to China.
01:00:58
Speaker
um But yeah, also I remember that T-SOT when I lived in Hong Kong, they launched a running watch. I don't know if that they still have it or not, um but that was kind of interesting to see ah a proper watch brand trying to go into the space of sport watches.
01:01:13
Speaker
um Yeah, I don't know anything about watches. You know, I've got my chorus now that I've had it for a few years and um I don't really kind of follow up the technology with it, but it will be it will be interesting if if Strava did come out with a watch.
01:01:28
Speaker
I'll definitely be keen to check that out. it Looks like they might still make it. Yeah. Yeah. I got a feeling they will. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely so it's definitely going to be an an interesting one to see. like I'm curious if Strava is going to end up bringing out their own one. I think that's probably where my head went to first with all of this. But what you were saying about going buying a watch from China, I just started started mentally rehearsing the team you add that we're now going to put into the future episode.
01:01:57
Speaker
But it is, i don't know if you guys listen to it. There's a podcast called Second Nature. is one of the free trial ones on like the business side of of sport. And they just did a deep dive into China and the market there. And it sounds like the running industry is just going nuts.
01:02:10
Speaker
um i Yeah, if you're at all interested in the business side of the sport, definitely go across Second Nature and look for the one they did recently on China. It's fascinating. And they just did one with Sonto like literally two or so days ago.
01:02:22
Speaker
Yeah, really good podcast, but pretty heavy as well. And, you know, um if you are trying to like listen to something a bit more fun, it is a pretty heavy podcast in the way of doing it. Not as fun as us. No. I can only listen to one a month.
01:02:37
Speaker
Well, actually, it was one of the people that said yes to Sinto was um Ben Burgess, and he'd been sent one. I know quite a few people that have been sent Sinto's new release, whatever it is, as is a thing. And, um like, yeah, he seemed to be enjoying it, very much seemed to also like his garment that he had before it. But I do think so Sinto seemed to be the brand to me that have got the momentum. Maybe i probably have recently biased cause i just listened to that.
01:03:01
Speaker
episode a couple of days ago but I was definitely bought into Suntos story and wanted them to do well out of it I think that more competition is good in any market so they seem to be they seem to be going after at least in Australia the Suntos Australia seems to be doing some like trying to push push a little bit with athletes so yeah yeah like with the Ben example and whatnot so yeah yeah choice good sign good sign for athletes Yeah, especially when these things cost $1,500 to get top-level watch. it's Yeah, very, very welcome.
01:03:33
Speaker
Cool. Anything else to say in there, guys? Are are you happy for me to move on? let's move on. Let's move on. Okay. I'm going to run through some events from over the weekend. I'm going to start overseas. We had the, don't know if you count this as the first golden ticket of the sea season because CCC a golden ticket, think, still.
01:03:51
Speaker
um Will CCC still a golden ticket it this year? yeah it was yeah Yeah, I think it is. yeah so technically, like I guess I'm the second golden ticket since since States. ah Over at Javelin 100, this was just nuts.
01:04:04
Speaker
Both course records went down by about 30 minutes on either side. i tuned in and watched the last... and I know maybe three hours of of it when I got up on Sunday a morning, I think.
01:04:16
Speaker
um Will Murray, who he came second to Seth Roling at Black Canyon 100K this year. And then he's, it sounds like he's had a horrendous um health journey since then. He came first, ran 12 hours 10. Remember, this is 100 miles and it's not completely flat. it's just ridiculously fast. Beating David Roach, 12 hours 18.
01:04:34
Speaker
And then Canyon Woodward, who David coaches in 12 hours 19. nineteen David has declined the golden ticket. So Will and Canyon have taken it. On the women's side, we saw Tara Dower. She came 13-31 to win. She also came seventh overall, like just ahead of Sage Canaday. So it's not like she's still a very good men's field at this point.
01:04:57
Speaker
um Second place was Beth McKenzie 14-31, so one hour behind. And I think it's just like Beth, by um all accounts, to come second, i had an incredible day. Tara Dower is just on a different level. Like she's beaten the likes of, think, Riley, brett Brady, Camille Heron had the record.
01:05:14
Speaker
Just nuts. And then Addy Bracey finished in third and 14.45. So 14 minutes back from Beth. um Beth isn't allowed to race states. And so Addy has taken that ticket. So cool to see a couple of names. I'm excited to see Will Murray come back because 12 hours 10. think the old course record was 12 hours.
01:05:34
Speaker
43 or something around there i know david roach ran 12 45 12 48 last year in some hotter conditions but yeah as you were mentioning vlad at the start the sport is just getting faster and faster and faster it is quite incredible yeah like it's getting close to like it's still a little bit off but it's getting close to like the 100 mile world record on the road which is like 10, that's 10 ounce 51. So it's still still a little bit off that, but it's like it's inching closer and closer. And know Javelina, I think is pretty quick, but still.
01:06:05
Speaker
It can also be really warm as well. Yeah, exactly. It's probably not the conditions that the world record was set in Lithuania. and I think that's the guy that has it. I don't know the exact mass for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius, but I'm pretty sure it was still in the high 20s.
01:06:20
Speaker
I think it was kind low to mid 80s. And last year it was getting close to 40 degrees centigrade in the race. So, yeah, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun to us. Over here. So, yeah, just a big shout out to Beth, because I think that was an awesome run from Beth.
01:06:34
Speaker
saw a post today feeling that might actually in 100 mile debut so correct me if i'm wrong there beth if you're listening and when i'm pretty sure that is her 100 mile debut in which case that is an extra level of incredible for that one okay so over here we had the great ocean trail ultra down in vic so andrew sorry andrew birchall won in 11 1803 ashley harink what came second in the men's 11 23 And then Fergus Jimenez came third in 11.30.37. So pretty close racing there, only 12 minutes separating the men in the women's field.
01:07:12
Speaker
We had Adi's... sort Silke first in 12-38-02, Cara Piney 13-09-18 and then Beck Howe in 13-39. A bit more a thread there and then the 45k in the men's field.
01:07:27
Speaker
Jordan Murphy 4-37-03. He had a bit of a decent lead over Nathan Skagliara. Sorry I butchered that one. Scalagliani, 4.50, 49. And then Henry Braebook in third, 4.54, 35. Followed very closely by Sophie Broome, who doubled back off from rollercoaster. She came first female, fourth overall, 4.56, 31.
01:07:53
Speaker
Then pretty close behind her, I've just pressed the wrong button, um was, give me a second here, was Gillian Turnbull. I can't tell her name, her number, because I've just really... 503, 14. Thank you for that.
01:08:05
Speaker
I've managed to put it in. I've put it into A's category order and it's all just gone completely nuts. Can you give me the third female? The third female, I believe, was Katie Karnascha. Yes. six by nineteen 619.
01:08:18
Speaker
Thank you for that one. so the back but Jillian and Sophie, very close and also very close to the top top six, both of them. Yeah, it's going good. Sophie's was getting ready for COSI 100K. Jillian's getting ready for GSER 50 miles. So very different styles of event there. I think probably Sophie getting ready for COSI would suit the Great Ocean Trail style more than Jillian getting ready for for the more mountainous stuff in in the high country in Vic. I think that's a really impressive run there from Jillian, five hours in that course. And and I had one of my guys was down there and it came up as 48k and last year he did the same event came up as 43 they've made some course changes so
01:08:56
Speaker
obviously it's come back in that time so if you are looking at the course records they don't mean anything over the last two years but yeah so 48k five hours is pretty good moving now the hasten trail was also on i we we have brett who helps us out with the south australian results and i asked it him why there are so many distances because this race has and then another deep creek
01:09:26
Speaker
which so many races so many races he then said that he's pretty sure that they are definitely it's like they get very close to or they actually do sell out of a lot of those distances so i don't know if its trail capacity or they just want to cap the numbers there but like if do you want to join run a marathon or a at least you have the options so i and do you guys know which are the kind of pre the the main distances at at this one think the 115 the main one isn't it yeah I don't know about the other ones. I wouldn't be able to pick.
01:09:54
Speaker
Yeah. and For the the interest of me not reading out eight different distances, I'm just going to go with a hundred and fifteen k here. um Sarah 57 and Amanda Spackham. melville one in went women's in fourteen twelve twelve beth newman fifteen oh two fifty seven and amandas baman 15.06.12. In the men's, Mark Hollingsworth, 10.40.21.
01:10:15
Speaker
Isaac Fishlock, second, 10.53.47. And then Jared Allen in third, 11.05. The fourth male was two hours behind those guys. So the three of them were really, really far clear.
01:10:27
Speaker
I did see Amy Stockwell won the 50K. She backed up off rollercoaster 46 the weekend before. that's a pretty impressive or resilient double, I should probably say.
01:10:38
Speaker
for there But yeah, if anyone would like to give me me some more more info into which are kind of the premier distances at Hayson, because that's a lot going on. and Yeah, I think it looks like in the 28K, Indiana Zammett also got the win over Lauren Rook. So that was another two names I...
01:10:56
Speaker
recognized indiana zamit was running golden trail series races earlier in the year or last year and lauren we know from various races yeah and then up in queensland we had the second round of the southeast queenland trail series in pomana the men's long course was won by jordan ryan jordan won the 50k at blackhall last weekend so another backing up there not quite as much doing another but it's probably quite a different experience michael knops came second so only 20 seconds separating them jordan 56 14 michael 56 34 and then matt lengren 101 37 on the women's side katie island 104 30 and first katie duffield second in 105 18 and then kelly bobir 112 44 um for that one so
01:11:36
Speaker
katie island one in four thirty and first katie dufffield second and one ah five eighteen and then kelly bob it in one twelve forty four um for that one so It's a very, very close rating there over the hour-long distance.
01:11:52
Speaker
um That was all the main results that I could see coming from here. Vlad, do you want to take us to the… I think we're still going to cover the four four picks.
01:12:05
Speaker
I was going to go for the question and then leave and then take Brady to the preview. should we Should we leave the question for next week? I do like that question, but I will talk for 10 minutes about that. I want to go deep on four picks.
01:12:17
Speaker
Okay. All right. Let's leave. james um that That was a question from James Barnett. James, we will do your question next week. Thank you for sending that one. it was There was one other result I saw. um Just a shout out to Liam McKenzie. He ran the Skyrunning World Series race in Korea, which I ran last year, actually, two-peak Skyrace.
01:12:33
Speaker
um Slightly different course, it looked like, but very similar. And still like that race was incredibly steep and up and down. Liam came sixth. So, yeah, he did a great job there. It was a pretty point pointy race.
01:12:47
Speaker
pointy field like very strong at the top of the end of the field and then sort of probably petered off a little bit but yeah still a very decent run um yeah he was probably it looked like a similar time to i did last year like the different courses are hard to compare but yeah good run from lee always cool to see ah at australian racing overseas in one of those uh one of those series so i thought i'd give him a shout out yeah Yeah, no, no, definitely. Thanks. Thanks for seeing that one. ah Brody, as Vlad has said, and yourself, we're going to look at four peaks, give a bit of a preview for that one. So do you want to take us away there?
Four Peaks Race Overview
01:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So we're trying not to go too far into it, but I'm a big fan of Four Peaks, so you guys can pull me up. um So, yes, for those that don't know, Peaks is a four-day race up in the Victorian Alpine country. So it's like up the for four different peaks up around the Bright area.
01:13:44
Speaker
um So... Yeah, it's a very long-standing race. we actually have some history here that i'll sort of sort of highlight a few key bits. But it was first held in 1979 and has been held every year since, apart from off in 2010 and 2020. So, yeah, it's been going for a long time. I've been...
01:14:04
Speaker
to it a fair few times, but a little bit more in the past few years, it actually got picked up. the The current ah RD is an ex-Iranteer, so he's been sort of trying to get R&Ters to up there a fair bit over the last few years, but it's also been, I think, regaining its glory, I think, in the last couple of years as well with people like uh matt crean and leo peddison ian best running in the men's um i'm not sure exactly who the women's winners have been over the last few years but definitely the women's field this year very strong so yeah it's it's i'll just jump in there quickly because i know i remember sophie broom she won last year and then a local girl here ellie um she won the year before ellie jackson
01:14:48
Speaker
Perfect. Yeah, so as it yeah it definitely seems to be regaining some some traction, which is really cool um because back in the day it was ah it was a really, it was sort of like a big deal and I guess when there was less trail races in general, it was sort of one of the one of the only.
01:15:03
Speaker
um But yeah, how it works is you climb Mount Buffalo on the first day, Mount Feathertop on the second day, Mount Hotham on the third day and then there's an up and down ah course on Mystic Hill right in the middle of Bright, sort of similar trails to where Buffalo Stampede goes around but a bit different.
01:15:24
Speaker
um So, yeah, it's four days in a row, pretty tough work. There's been some variation over the years, like they've used Mount Portpunca in the past, Mount Bogong. There's been different orders but over the last few years it's been the same race.
01:15:38
Speaker
um Sometimes they have to cut them short because of weather and they stop a little bit early. But, yeah, generally you can look back over the last four years and have a look and it's been pretty consistent. It's usually over the Melbourne Cup weekend.
01:15:51
Speaker
I actually did the one that was in January because it was after COVID. So the 2021 version was in January 2022.
01:15:59
Speaker
But yes, usually every year it's held around November. I've only done the whole thing ah once that year, but you can just go up and do one race and I've done that several times.
01:16:10
Speaker
So that's really cool as well. You can just go and do one if you can't do the whole four. um There's been some big... ah Some big names in the past. I think there's some here that I don't know the names of, but I'll read out. Robin Rishworth, he won seven, or he or she, I don't know, actually, seven times.
01:16:28
Speaker
um There's been road runners, trail runners, orienteers, lots of ah people up there. David Osmond, who is sort of one of Australia's best mountain runners, he was five-time winner. One of the most interesting ah people who have been there sort of the quickest times, which is some of them are bonkers, Paul Crake, who was an elite cyclist, and then he sort of got into running after that. And he was, yeah, he's put down some incredible times on some of these courses that like literally, like you you look at strava and they're like five minutes faster than the Strava CRs, so it's a bit crazy.
01:17:02
Speaker
He won four times. And then in and the women, Nicky Tors won six times. Hanny Alston won five times. I think they're both Orienteers. And error so Iris Pesse, who you might have seen, she does the sky running circuit. She's been on the winner's list before.
01:17:18
Speaker
and So, yeah, lots of... people over the years. I won't go through all the course records, but um yeah, there's some there's some really cool, some really fast races. um You can see it on Strava now, but that's not all of them because obviously this has been run long before Strava as well. But um yeah, if you get on Strava, you can see sort of the at least the ones that have happened since Strava. And there's lots you see sort of the who's who of trail, mountain, orienteering, those sorts of things that have that have done these events.
01:17:49
Speaker
And, yeah, that's probably the main things about the races. um It's pretty cool because it's over the whole weekend. um It used to be at one year my friend was telling me he actually did it in the year where they did Mystic first, which was a bit rough because that has a massive downhill.
01:18:05
Speaker
And then everyone got DOMS and you did three days of running uphill. ah But now it's a lot nicer. There's three days of running uphill and then the downhill race is great. or the up-down races at the end. So, yeah, it's a very pleasant weekend. The races are in the morning. Bright is obviously it's sort of centred around bright and bright is obviously beautiful, especially at that time of year.
01:18:26
Speaker
um So often out running in the morning, get back, finish 10, 11, 12, finish shop ten eleven head into town, get a pie, sit around the river. Yeah, it's a great weekend. So, yeah, if you haven't done it before, ah would highly recommend heading there in the future.
01:18:42
Speaker
It's probably one of my favourite events I've ever done. um And, yeah, I'm keen to do it again at some point when I'm not injured. Yeah. I was thinking the other day about it, that it's kind of set up, obviously, it's a Victorian public holiday, not for the whole nation, but it's set up very well to host the Mountain Grand Champs.
01:19:04
Speaker
Because you've got the uphill, you've got the classic course. like the The Mystic is 13.5km, 750m. Just saying. yeah Yeah, pretty close. Yeah, and the uphills, they' probably they might be slightly long, although Buffalo is probably the right length.
01:19:18
Speaker
The other two are a bit longer, but yeah, it would it would definitely work. Yeah. Yeah. Just and e like that already pre-made, it's got the two style of events. That's like relatively rare to have both there yeah without creating can be brand new.
01:19:32
Speaker
Exactly. And if you were focused on just doing those two races, like you just want to do national champs, you could easily do that. Buffalo's on the first day and the Mystic races on the on the Tuesday, which is a public holiday. So yeah, you could even go away and come back potentially. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really good point.
01:19:49
Speaker
Maybe. Maybe I'll tell the ah RD and maybe that might be something he can work towards in future years. And the thing is, like, it's already attracting really good fields. um So I might get into into that now.
01:20:01
Speaker
um In this year is looking, we probably nearly could have done a preview episode. That's how good it's looking. um In the women, we've got some very big heavy hitters, three of the biggest names in trail running teams.
01:20:16
Speaker
in Australia, if not the three biggest at the moment in the women's category. um So it's probably, I think, not i think Lucy Bartholomew is probably the the biggest name. Everyone knows Lucy.
01:20:30
Speaker
um She's doing all four days. um well I think she said, I saw on her Instagram, that she used to do this when she was a bit younger, ah when she first started getting into trail running um and maybe hasn't done it as much hasn't been there recently so she's excited to get back.
01:20:46
Speaker
So she's doing all of the races. Kate Avery is on the list. She's just doing one of the races. She's obviously coming back after she had her baby earlier in the year so she's she's doing just the one um but I'm very excited for that match up. That's going to be a good race and then you've also got Kelly Angel there running um and she obviously we know Kelly is one of the yeah she's been doing trail running for a long time one of Australia's all-time greats probably in trail running um coming off the back of world champs I don't know what if she's been specifically training for mountains but um she'll definitely be in the mix so yeah I'm super excited like that's pretty cool to have those three all running and we've got Demi as well
01:21:37
Speaker
Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. She wasn't on the list. i She didn't make it to my list, but you did tell me just before. So Demi Coldwell, who's coming off the back of Rollercoaster win and has had some great running this year, I think she'll be very competitive in that in that mix as well. So, yeah, it's going to be good. I'll give a quick shout out. There's a few orienteers running in this event.
01:22:01
Speaker
At least in the first couple of years, and in 2021 and 2022, when it came back, there was a lot of volunteers there. And ah some of the names I yet reached sort of said before, from years gone past also has been a very popular race for orientiers to go to.
01:22:16
Speaker
um So there's some of our young promising juniors there, Erica Anderby, Milakey, Mia Shingler. um I don't think they'll be able to match it with maybe the top girls, but maybe they will. I don't know. They might surprise me.
01:22:29
Speaker
And also Azen Prendergast, who's done some trail running before as well and she's done or entering for many years she's there as well so yeah you've got like seven eight that's just the eight ladies i called out there's probably another five or six that will be in the mix so a very good field for the women this year yeah it's it's cool to see so many names on this starlet i think there'd lot of people that are pretty happy to see four peaks being competitive and that's why we wanted to make sure we gave it air time the and give a bit a bit of history because I can't think of an event in Australia that's still going that's pre-1979. Do you guys know of any?
01:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know the history of most events, but it'd have to be pretty – it'd have to be up there with, yeah, if not the earliest. There must be some – I don't know how long Six Foot's been going for. That's one that rik comes to mind that's quite old. a Cradle Mountain Ultra I think been going for many, many years.
01:23:19
Speaker
um But, yeah, I don't know if they go – they're two that jump to mind, but I don't know if they go back this far. Six-foot's 1984. Okay, it's close. Close. um But, yeah, it's cool. I feel like there's not – I can't think of events that really champion their history. Like we're seeing the 20-year anniversary, but we're not seeing the 50, 60 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:23:42
Speaker
And I think because this one unfortunately sort of like changed – RDs and owners a few times and there's a bit of the history that's been lost but I think there's an effort being made still to try and pull as much of that together um especially because I know like the people who are running it now they're like what is the course record and it like it's hard to find those results from back then because obviously we have Strava but we we know that some really good people have run it for in the past so yeah I'm looking forward to that sort of over the years coming a bit more obvious and together and i think there's work to sort of pull that together and be a bit more obvious because there is a lot of history to this event which is which is cool yeah who who are you picking to take the uh the men's and women's fields out
01:24:21
Speaker
ah Well, yeah, i'll go quickly shoot through the men's. That's also very competitive. I guess it's probably headlined by, or I don't even know who we can say is a headliner here, but like I'll just call out some names.
01:24:35
Speaker
So Ian Best, World Champs, about a month ago has been running VKs in Europe. So he's probably in maybe the most specific shape. He's running again. he ran last year, came second.
01:24:48
Speaker
Last year's winner, Matt Crean, who's also did it the year before that and came second. um He's always very competitive over these races, has put down some very impressive times. Michael Kernaghan's running, who was also at World Champs, probably was he's our best performer in the uphill.
01:25:05
Speaker
um So he's going to be hard to beat. He's a very good uphill runner, so he's going to be particularly good in the uphill only ones, which is most of them. um Toby Lang, who was supposed to be going to World Champs but had to pull out, unfortunately, I think he looks like he's in really good form. I just saw, like, the other day he was about...
01:25:25
Speaker
Six seconds off a course record in Canberra, Black Mountain that Marty Dent holds, and that was when Marty Dent was fit. So looks like Toby's in good shape. ah We've got Jack Brand, who came second at Buffalo Marathon behind Mikey Dimiantas.
01:25:42
Speaker
Alistair George, who came third at Hounslow, Orientier. We also got Leith Soden who was at World Champs with me for entering this year and I know he's in good shape.
01:25:52
Speaker
I'm not sure what his mountain running is like but he's bound to be in the mix. ah Sam Burridge who I think Sam's probably been at this event the most out of all these people for the last few years. He turns up every year. He's a previous winner.
01:26:04
Speaker
Might not be in the best shape of his life. I'm sure he probably doesn't mind me saying that but he will still be there fighting and he loves it. So, yeah, I want to give Sam a shout out because it's cool to see him back there again.
01:26:16
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. you You coach Alistair, don't you? Yes, like I so coach Alistair. Yeah, I think he's he's just doing – so, yeah, some of these people, as I said with Kate, she's just doing one. Alistair's actually only doing one because he's doing GPT relay.
01:26:30
Speaker
So some of these people might only be doing one or two. So there's like obviously people go for the individual races, but there is an overall of all four races combined as sort of like the winner.
01:26:41
Speaker
But there's races within a race every day. So that's a bit of fun. Yeah, I guess that makes pretty hard from the picks perspective as well because the list we had didn't say who's doing it. Yeah, if I had to guess, like I assume, we know Lucy's doing all of them and I know Kate's not. So that was probably the two. I don't know Demi's doing all of them.
01:27:01
Speaker
If Demi's doing all of them, I think she'll give Lucy a run for her money. But Lucy is also in great shape at the moment. So, yeah, that'll be interesting to see. In the men... I assume Matt Crean's doing all and I assume maybe, I know Ian is and I think maybe, well, I assume Kerners is, but I don't know for sure.
01:27:19
Speaker
It's hard to pick because Crean is really good back to back to back and the last day has some downhill. I wouldn't be surprised if ah Matt Crean wins again, um but I think Michael Kernighan has really stepped up his overall trail running, not just being a beast at the uphills.
01:27:36
Speaker
So if he's doing all four days, I think he might win. Yeah, yeah. it's I think the women's is is tricky because you you never want to bet against Lucy. Like it's not exactly, it's a far cry from UTMB, but then her roller coaster time was just nuts. And what you just said about Matt Crean being able to back up, the thing you're going to trust that Lucy's going to be able to do is perform very well on day four still.
01:28:00
Speaker
Whereas gay if we're assuming Demi's doing all four, I think maybe maybe Demi wins or pushes Lucy in day one, but I don't know if she could do the same by the fourth day in a row.
01:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. be interesting. I'm definitely going to be watching closely over the weekend. Like I love watching and like I've got my times on the Strava segment so I get to see how people go, like how many how many places am I going
Insights on King of the Hill and Race Community
01:28:23
Speaker
to drop this year? Like where ah ah more I think I'm out of the top 10 for pretty much all of them now. was inside the top 10 at different times. But, um yeah, we'll see ah how many more places I lose.
01:28:34
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. No, it's going to be a very fun weekend over there. There's a couple more events on this weekend as well. Brody, do you want to run us through them?
01:28:45
Speaker
Yeah, so we've got ah Portland Three Bays Running Festival. That's in Victoria. The King of the Hill is on again. So that's Backout Ultra event in Victoria.
01:28:57
Speaker
um It was on last year. They offered up a like a bunch of prize money. I think the prize money is up for grabs again. Yeah. 25 grand I think they've got 20 25 grand yeah I think last year it's sort of interesting watching their social media as well because they had all these like not gimmicks but like well they sort of work gimmicks so like trying to get the engage the audience a little bit with like offering the runners like oh if you pull it now you get this and like that sort of stuff that was like a bit different it quite interesting I enjoyed watching that um I think last year it was there a tie last year
01:29:31
Speaker
I don't think you can't have a tie in a backyard, can you? unless Yeah, but I don't know if they decided to like – there was like some some reason that they decided to split the money like they agreed upon it or something. But yeah, I don't know exactly. But you you're bound to there's bound to be some sort of interesting thing there. It's not your standard backyard ultra.
01:29:46
Speaker
It also is not your standard backyard ultra because they have to – I think it's a shorter loop, but they go up and down a hill and it's quite a big hill. I've got a couple of guys I'm coaching for it and it's 4.2k with a 266 meter. It's kind of done in two two pushes.
01:30:02
Speaker
But when you when you multiply it out... That's brutal. Yeah, it's something like 6,000 meters every 100k or so that you do. It's just, yeah. it's It's basically, I think it's the same same stats as CCC, but you're just doing this little hill on repeat. Yeah. And I think that's the thing with the Backout Ultra is like normally...
01:30:21
Speaker
like the muscle damage stimulus I guess you can keep relatively low because you're running on the flat and you keep the speed isn't high you're not smashing the muscles but you add 200 meters down no matter how fast you're going is going to load the muscles up a little bit more so yeah it's definitely a different dynamic at this one so yeah it's cool it's cool that it's its own thing ah compared to the other ones and so Yeah, that's a good one. Last year they had the draw because they were just hiking it and, you know, they weren't moving like really quick to be able to to achieve it in one hour. And then they actually cut it down to, i think, 45 minutes and they were still walking it.
01:31:02
Speaker
um So they actually decided to like, yeah, let's call it a day and split the money. I'm pretty sure that's what happened. um And then this year, I think they made the course a bit a bit longer.
01:31:13
Speaker
so I actually signed up early in the year, but then I was too scared. After I heard that story, I was like too scared that's going to happen again. I'm like, all right, let's see what's going to happen this year. um And then, yeah, maybe I'll do it next year the year after.
01:31:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll see what happens. um We've also got Bear Creek Trail Run in New South Wales and the final of the Kenyany Trail Series down in Tassie on this weekend for at Knockers. I don't know which race that is, but, yeah, it's one of their series. So, yeah, that's it.
01:31:45
Speaker
um so yeah but what's happening this week and then a big weekend the weekend after, mostly with GPT, but a big November really. So yeah, what's going to be coming up soon?
01:31:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's just back to back to back big events through November. It's a very busy time. We'll be hitting you with some previews coming out, GPT and COSI and covering off GSCRs in this sort of same style within within the main show. But yeah, plenty plane to come. Vlad, what's what's up for you for the next week?
01:32:17
Speaker
Just back to normal training. Are you still kind of coached or training with Matt Ramson or being told what to do? Yeah. So I guess it's mixture of some of the stuff that I know that I should be doing for trail running.
01:32:31
Speaker
But definitely the track and threshold is from Matt. um And it's been, yeah, it's been working quite well. Sweet. Exciting. Brody, what about yourself? ah Yeah, just ah another...
01:32:44
Speaker
I'm going to do another four runs this week, um but trying to increase the volume of each run. Well, not each run, but overall volume. um And then I'm hoping to do about an hour 45 the on the weekend so and then the next week hopefully run two hours of triple top or just over two hours. So, yeah, well, hopefully I'm pretty confident that will go fine. So, yeah, looking forward to I'll be out in the dandies next weekend, not up at four peaks. I can usually try and get I've been up there fair a fair few years, so it's, yeah, disappointing to not be up there. But, um yeah, I'm going to be up in the high country later in the year. And GSER starts with one of the four peaks, so there's still like a little taste of it.
01:33:26
Speaker
Exactly. you You can still compare your time and then you just got to run the race back. Just ignore it. Yeah, easy. Yeah, I'll just blow up. Yeah, exactly. That's actually fine. no one cares about the actual race. It's just the segment. okay It's all that matters.
01:33:38
Speaker
All that's driver. Yeah. um very much the same, just normal stuff this week. I will be down well, hopefully get a few bike rides in. I've been really enjoying grapple riding, actually like just getting back out there again. And now I'm feeling a little bit less sketchy on the bike.
01:33:52
Speaker
It used to be, I'd go into a corner, I'd look where I want to go. And then the next thing I knew i was off the edge on the other side. So that stopped, which is yeah very welcome change. Um, but yeah, a few bikes, few few gyms, and then I'm going to be down at King of the Hill. So,
01:34:08
Speaker
It's really, it's a really like mixed one because I want my guys to do really well. But at the same point, I just don't want to be there until Tuesday. i want to go home. It's really weird because you go to, you go to support ah an event and you know when it's going to be finished. Like they have cutoffs and, or like you'll know what time theyre going to take. It's going to be on Sunday.
01:34:28
Speaker
But yes. So who knows? i Hopefully in 10 days time, I'm still there and they're still going and someone's 25 grand later at the end of it. But yeah, we'll see. I hope you get new commission.
01:34:40
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I will be writing up a very quick athlete contract. and make line it I'll make sure they sign up when they're a bit delirious. Yeah, yeah. Get them to sign up like 30 laps in. Yeah, exactly.
01:34:51
Speaker
But cool, guys. Thank you so much. That was fun. I enjoyed it. Appreciate you are entertaining my questions and making you dive deep on it. Yeah, it was good. Good to chat. Thank you for ah questioning. Sweet. See you, guys. Thanks for listening.
01:35:05
Speaker
See guys. See ya.