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World Champs Reflections, Kunanyi 66km Plans & the UTMB Carbon Debate continues feat. SJ Miller | Episode 93
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In episode 93 of Peak Pursuits, Jess and James sit down with Australian World Champs representative SJ to unpack a big few months on and off the trails. SJ reflects on her Short Trail performance at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships, a tough post-race illness, and a confidence-boosting win at Bogong to Hotham last weekend. The conversation then turns to 2026 planning, with a shift toward longer racing and a bold entry into the Kunanyi 66km.
Jess and James also share candid updates on their own training returns, before diving deep into one of the biggest global talking points in trail running: UTMB’s new carbon offset policy and its impact on Australian athletes. Packed with athlete insight, race results, and informed debate, this episode cuts to the heart of where trail running in Australia is heading.
Results:
***Don’t forget, use code PEAK at https://bix-hydration.myshopify.com/en-au for 20% off Bix products, exclusive to PPP listeners!***
Thanks for tuning in to Peak Pursuits!
Connect with us on Instagram @peakpursuits.pod to share your thoughts, questions, and your own trail stories. Until next time, keep hitting the trails and chasing those peak pursuits!
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guest
00:00:08
Speaker
Hey guys, we're back for another episode of the Peak Pursuits podcast. I'm Jess Jason, tuning in from Canberra, and today I'm joined by my co-host James.
00:00:21
Speaker
How you going James? Going very well. Looking forward to the episode. Looking forward to also being back on. I think the last one was but but it was before Christmas. It feels like a very long time.
00:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, looking forward to catching up with you and how your running's been going um with the return from the injury and all that.
SJ's Post-Championship Recovery
00:00:40
Speaker
But just quickly, i will introduce the listeners to our lovely guest that we have on today.
00:00:46
Speaker
And she's actually, i think I'm allowed to say, just changed coaches. So James, you're actually coaching our guests that we have on today. so Our guest is someone that's been in the trail running scene for quite a few years now. She's represented Australia just recently at the World Mountain and Trail Running Champs and she was the top Aussie in the short trail.
00:01:10
Speaker
So it's the lovely SJ. Hi guys, how are you going? Welcome to the podcast. How are you going? Thank you for having me. I'm good, I'm good. I'm excited. Thanks for having me.
00:01:21
Speaker
So how has everything been going since World Champs? I know you've jumped in a few local races since then. um Just give us an update on training, life, how things have been going.
00:01:34
Speaker
Um, yeah, so things after world champs were, um, oh, we're a little bit slow. Um, you probably are well aware of this, but I got, I got really sick. Um, I was sick before the race and then I feel like my body held together, uh, for the event and I was really happy with how I
GSER Race and Future Plans
00:01:56
Speaker
ran there. And then i think I lasted maybe,
00:01:59
Speaker
48 hours and then I was really, really unwell um for about four weeks afterwards. I think I haven't been that sick since ah the original wave of of COVID. um Yeah, so got really, really unwell, unfortunately, and took me a really, ah yeah, a few weeks to um recover from that. But, um yeah, after that, jumped into...
00:02:26
Speaker
GSER and yeah really enjoyed that one and I think that sort of then prompted the what am I going to do in 2026 and yeah just recently did Bogong to Holland so training's been going good so far fingers crossed the body's um holding together um and yeah it's um it' like it's So far it's been smooth sailing. um Nothing is ever ah without um problems for long with me. But, um yeah, I've been really, really happy with how things are going and I've been loving it. And it's been summer and I've been on holidays, so it's been a great time to train. Oh, and just, yeah, circling back to Braga and to Hotham, which was just on the weekend gone, um congratulations on first place in the 35K.
Bogong to Hotham Experience
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, thanks. um so yeah, how was the race? um Was that sort of one that you've wanted to do for a while or have you done that one before?
00:03:26
Speaker
i have never done that one before and it's, oh, I feel a bit bad about this. it's It's relatively local to me and it's honestly not one that I have,
00:03:37
Speaker
really had on my radar. um I've done some training up at Mount Bogong, maybe, don't know, once or twice a year for the past um few years, just basically with with friends and just adventuring up there. But I i hadn't done an event there before. um And yeah, I thought it would be a really fun um training race, I guess, um to, I guess, help me see where I am and what I need to work on and also doing an event in January tends to somewhat keep me a little bit honest over the Christmas, New Year, summer school holiday, festive season that I tend to really look forward
Motivations and Training
00:04:24
Speaker
to. So Um, I think locking something in previously, I've locked in two bays. Um, and, um, last year I decided I, uh, last year I got injured on year's day, so I didn't get to do anything early January. Um, so having done two bays twice and being injured in January last year, this, this year I was just looking for something different and um James suggested it and I was like, well, I've got nothing else on. I entered really, really late too, because I wasn't sure whether or not I, um maybe wanted to race. But, um yeah, it ended up being a really good um just, yeah, training run to see, um yeah, where I need to go next.
00:05:04
Speaker
And how did you feel in the race? um Like did you sort of come into it like in peak fitness are you still sort of building back up from – um Zach, the little break that you had afterwards?
00:05:18
Speaker
I'm definitely building back up. Maybe Peak Fitness and I will meet one day. um But i know, um' yeah, definitely still building back up. Even just mentally, I'm not 100% sure how much I wanted to hurt maybe. So i think it was just good to, it was a really good excuse to do a five-hour with essentially no bailout. um So, yeah, I um i didn't ah didn't didn't feel amazing if I'm being completely honest. um
00:05:59
Speaker
The climb going up Bogong I found ah quiet quite difficult um and I probably hiked a pretty much all of that um and not necessarily the way, yeah, that maybe I had expectations of myself too. But um and then coming up to the summit of Mount Bogong, it was freezing. um It was super windy. i had to put my gloves on, i had to put my coat on um My like, I
Race Challenges and Gear Discussion
00:06:29
Speaker
couldn't speak. My face was like moving everywhere. And I was like, I was getting blown sideways off the trail. I couldn't run forwards. And i hate being cold. um So I had a bit of a dummy spit moment going up there and I was like, what have I done? yeah.
00:06:46
Speaker
this is yeah this is really challenging but um funnily enough it was as I was running down i saw the heaps of people smiling um on their way up and I was like oh come on they're enjoying it so maybe maybe you know take a leaf out of their book and um appreciate the adventure and once I had a bit of a um a mind check um and realized that or remembered rather that I I wanted to be there so um yeah and then I really enjoyed um the rest of it so yeah it was it started off as a bit of a race and it turned in to a bit of a a hard long run maybe yeah yeah
00:07:27
Speaker
And, yeah, just looking at the results, looked like the first two overall were the two first women. Yeah, yeah. did you have the other lady around you at all? Like could you see her in the race or were you sort of solo for most of it?
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, I saw her when I was coming off Mount Bogong um and that was, yeah, that was the only time really. um I sort of yeah knew that she would always be there but – There was definitely no turning around and looking behind on the downhill um single track, jumping over so many different fallen down trees. And it was very obstacle course, like over one tree and under another. And um yeah, there was definitely no opportunity to sort of look behind as to where you were. But I also, I didn't really, yeah.
00:08:20
Speaker
care that much where where she was it would have been cool to and have another female to chat with Yeah, I feel like those downhill, those techie downhills are your jam, though. Like, you're so good at them. hate Oh, thank you. That's kind. um i actually really I actually really enjoyed the the downhill. um Yeah. Yeah, I was trying out a different pair of shoes and, yeah, it was all muddy and wet and slippery, which was really different because I expected it to be super hot and dry. um Yeah. So, yeah, ah i I definitely did enjoy the downhill downhill.
00:08:54
Speaker
on the weekend much more than the uphill, which for me is is new So, yeah. yeah Yeah. And what were the new pair of shoes? um I was just wearing a pair of, I don't even know what they're called. I'm not a shoe person. Do you want me to do No, they're like, what were the shoes, James? They were the on the the OnCloud Ultra Pros. Oh, cool. The plated, like nylon, I think they're nylon P-backs plated shoes.
00:09:20
Speaker
which would have worked pretty well on that terrain like if it was a bit muddier they probably would have been pretty slippy because there's not a lot of grip on the underneath but no i didn't find that out uh putting my foot on a tree to yeah right um but no they were really they were really good they were really comfy um definitely no complaints from my feet whatsoever so um amazing so that was good fun Cool.
Future Goals and Decision Making
00:09:44
Speaker
So what are your goals for this year and, um yeah, what's James going to help you build towards?
00:09:51
Speaker
What exciting goals do we have? Exciting goals. I'm a really notoriously bad decision maker um when it comes to choosing what I want to do and then even when I choose something, I tend to second guess it.
00:10:06
Speaker
um So at the moment, um I have put Kenyani on my bingo card for this year. um But yeah, as I mentioned to you earlier, it's um it's actually on my son's 16th birthday um and he he wants to go and do Buffalo. yeah.
00:10:29
Speaker
like whilst I've i've committed to Kenyany and um I have an entry there and some some flights and friends and that's going to be super fun, I do still sort of have in the back of my mind that just in case I ah have to pivot um if the family no longer is able to um sort of I'm sure they won't say that I can't go, but, yeah, if if I sort of, I don't know, maybe if I get the mum guilt, if I'm being honest, if I get the mum guilt too much and I really need to um to switch that, then then there's something else on that weekend as well that I could do that's similar. But at the moment I'm super excited about, yeah, jumping into Kenyani. I've never been to Tassie before, um got a group of people going, um and it's just something different, I think, which is, um get seducers flowing a little bit. um And then other than that, I haven't locked in anything else. I have an OCC ah qualifier, which um I need to sign up by midnight tonight if I'm going to take, but I'm pretty sure I've decided to not um to not do that one. yeah
00:11:39
Speaker
And yeah, so nothing else. What um distance are you thinking about at Kunani? I've entered the 66. So longer. it's longer than have done before. um Yeah, much longer. um So with the exception of 100K run a very long time ago, um that will be my longest event. yeah um So, yeah, it's I guess it's exciting and and motivating to sort of try and do something completely different.
Importance of Taking Breaks
00:12:14
Speaker
I've been sitting around that 40 to run
00:12:16
Speaker
fifty k mark for a while and if you'd asked me in previous years I would have said that 30k's was my favorite distance and yeah now I would probably say that 50k's is my favorite distance but when I was at GSER and I did the 56 I was like oh that was really cool just doing like that extra 10k's yeah so ask me again after I'm in Tasmania and I'll probably say I want to go back to park runs.
00:12:46
Speaker
Well, I guess like um the time on feet at Welts was probably equivalent to like a sixty k race. Yeah, for sure. Anyway, so you've got, you've got a little bit of experience there. Um, yeah, that's super exciting.
00:13:02
Speaker
Um, cool. I think Sj, something you kind of mentioned before, and we spoke about this when you came on and did the interview with me before worlds is like, you'd had a run of injuries and trying to get back and pushing and trying and getting getting ready for the worlds team.
00:13:21
Speaker
I think it's like a lot of people have that experience where it's really hard to actually get to the event they want to get to, whether it's just work, family, injuries, whatever it is, and then feeling burnt out and feeling unmotivated and wanting to take
Recovery and Renewed Motivation
00:13:33
Speaker
a break. But I feel like, especially in Australia where we don't really have, we don't have a winter experience,
00:13:37
Speaker
per se like we're not covered in snow in most towns it's really easy just to go year after year after year and never take that break so like having let yourself like putting the coaching stuff aside just from your running giving yourself that chance to kind of switch off de-emphasize it do you feel like that helped you come back with more motivation to train or or did it not not make too much of a difference for you Yeah, look, I definitely felt more i excited to train. I always jump back into things quite tentatively though in terms of I'm just going to run because running is fun and then someone will suggest a race and I'll be like, oh, that sounds fun. There's a group of people going, I want to go do that one. So I i feel like I get um ah ah get quite motivated and excited to train for training
00:14:26
Speaker
I don't know, the the run holidays, the adventures and whatnot. And then when the race actually starts to creep closer, i start to wig out a little bit and i was like, oh dear, do i do I like racing or am i do I just really like holidaying with friends that are that are running? um But at the moment I i felt rested afterwards mainly because I was sick and, yeah, im um I'm still enjoying it. so yeah, just keep going with it, I guess.
00:14:57
Speaker
And did the technicality of Worlds like make you want to do more technical races, like avoid that stuff? Obviously, KMR is known for being on the more technical side of things, but I feel like that could have really gone either way.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, no I liked the technicality for um for Worlds. It was, i look, I'm not going to lie, i found the downhills really brutal and quite terrifying, to be honest. um It was...
00:15:23
Speaker
a matter of at times I just felt like, wow, if you put one foot wrong here, you are, you're breaking bones or losing teeth. And that was quite scary because I wasn't, um I didn't feel super prepared for that. um So that's something I'd like to um maybe just,
00:15:43
Speaker
be a little bit more confident in because my lead up to Worlds wasn't, um wasn't pretty, like it wasn't straightforward. um so yeah, I, I'm excited to have a play on the more technical stuff. I think it, especially when events are longer for me, if they're not technical, I just find they, I don't know, they just drag on a bit for me. They go a bit slower. Like I need something to keep my, to keep my brain focused. And when it's super technical, you're just like, holy shit, two hours is gone. Like, where did that go? I'm still looking at the same single track and I i haven't fallen over.
00:16:21
Speaker
So, yeah. I don't know. Sorry, Jess, go on. Anything you got 1D Cross then? Oh, when we were running that course, Jess, I was like, there is no way I'm doing this event ever. It's so brutal.
00:16:38
Speaker
It's so brutal. But do you know what's funny? This is like, but now I look back on it and i was like, that was fun, right? hi i don you know, I compare it to the world's course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um And I think also to like running with you and Trish that day, like that was just a so like such a fun day.
Strategic Race Planning
00:16:58
Speaker
It didn't really matter to me how brutal and and shitty the course was. It was just, don't know, I still now think of that as a fun day as opposed to um a day where I've left my soul out on the on the trail and I can't recover it.
00:17:13
Speaker
So I wouldn't say no to that one. My only hesitation with that is that it's cold and I don't love being cold. Yeah, and they've also brought it forward now. so it's the week before UTA. So it's early early to mid-May, which in terms of like it it gives you like – It's not that cold. also, it gives you basically April to recover off a 60, 6k race and come back, which people, some some people can do, some people can't do. It's just that question of like, what's, what's worth it And there's no easy race at 1D. Like even the 5k is bruised on the body. Like it's just straight up mystic and straight down. So I don't think it will, it's a good decision for them to bring
Jess's Training Focus
00:17:55
Speaker
it forward. It's a shame obviously it then competes with UTA, but it's a very different type of event but to not get destroyed by the weather which is happening quite a lot when you're on that june long weekend yeah it's um yeah ah hopefully it's it instigates more people to go especially since you can't go to uta like if you haven't got a ticket you can't really get one so yeah yeah cool all right um are we allowed to talk about you just what are your plans i know this is like yeah
00:18:23
Speaker
Am I allowed to jump into that situation? I'm excited to hear about you. yeah Yeah, we can jump into my update. um So I, yeah, I've just been sort of like slowly building back up. um I'm not doing heaps of volume at the moment. I'm trying to get my speed back. um So I've been working with Kate as my coach for the last few weeks, which has been awesome. um Yeah, working really well. Like I think,
00:18:51
Speaker
um Just her having that like track background, like the trainings just really suits me and she sort of like understands. where I'm coming from when I say I want to, like, work at getting faster. Like, she understands that that's, like, one of my strengths that I can bring um to the trails. So, yeah, getting back on the track. um I did my first track session back last week, um which went a lot better than i expected it to. um
00:19:22
Speaker
So that was really good. And i think just, like, running with a group again on the track um and feeling strong, like, I wasn't, um, super beat up cause I hadn't done like a three hour run on the Sunday. um that was really nice. So that definitely like kickstarted a better week for me, like just feeling a bit more motivated, um, and excited to train again. Um, so yeah, definitely feeling a lot more positive, um, after that, which is cool. Um, so yeah, then just, yeah, I'm doing about like 60 K of running,
00:19:57
Speaker
in the week, so just like a few easy runs. I've swapped some of my runs for cycles um just because I wanted to get back into that again. um i sort of noticed that like um because I've been forced to stop running in the past, like I've had to spend like a few months training on the bike and like I think that bike training was actually really good for me like to build some aerobic fitness.
00:20:25
Speaker
I don't know what the technical terms are, but I just think I really respond well to the training on ah on the bike, which I haven't done for like a bit over a year now because I haven't been injured.
00:20:37
Speaker
So i want to include that a bit more um in my training and I've really been enjoying
Balancing Speed and Race Volume
00:20:42
Speaker
it. So We'll keep doing that. um Yeah, and then i got onto the trails with Sarah on the weekend for my long run, um just two hours around Ainsley and Madura.
00:20:56
Speaker
which was nice. I felt really good and strong. So yeah, pretty good week last week for me. Um, yeah. And race wise, I'm hoping to race the Buffalo 20.
00:21:08
Speaker
Um, I'm just going to stick to shorter stuff for now. So I've entered, I mentioned last week that I've entered OCC. um so that'll probably be like my long, big race for the year. And then around there, I'll just be doing local shorter races. Um, just to build some confidence and some speed back.
00:21:28
Speaker
So yeah, excited for that. That's super exciting and also terrifying because you're getting faster. o I just, yeah, feel like last year, like I did so much um like long races. Like I did two days at the start of the year and then the rest of my races were all like 45 to 50 K. yeah um and I noticed like, even though I was sort of jumping on the track,
00:21:53
Speaker
it was sort of like the first session that would go if I was feeling fatigued from the volume. um So I just like I found I wasn't really hitting paces that I used to be able to hit or it was just a lot more effort to run certain paces. So I just want to get back to that kind of – yeah, back to that kind of speed and freshness.
00:22:14
Speaker
um Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. it's It's good to recognize that as well, Jess, because like there's only so so long you can pull multiple levers before you burn out. like if you're trying to Even sometimes when we're really trying to push for 50K or further and you're trying to just maintain your speed, even that, like if you're not recovering quick enough off the back of the weekend, it's It gets to Wednesday and you're like, oh, I really don't want to have to run fast again now, or you can't get through enough of a session to actually make sizable difference. And when you just go like you were doing like marathon into 50 K into 50 K race, you're kind of stuck in this perpetual cycle of, well, I can't drop the volume off that much to rebuild the speed because then I'm not going to be strong enough for the actual race. And it's, yeah, I'm really like that. All that work will be beneficial in the long run.
00:23:00
Speaker
It makes for quite a hard, hard year or hard tail end of the year when you're just tired from trying to balance a lot of balls. But yeah. yeah'm sure I'm sure working with Kate, adding in that speed again, it was going to be exciting to see this year and probably a lot more fun for you as well the sounds of it.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I'm definitely more excited by the thought of running like a 20K race and not having to carry so much gear. Oh, Oh, my gosh. The gear on the weekend was all necessary. Don't have a problem with it. But, yeah, for for five hours having, don't know, probably like a four kilo pack. it's Yeah. lot.
00:23:42
Speaker
Were you tempted by all, Jess? Yes. Um, I did think about it when I saw the prize money, but, um, I just, yeah, I think it's, it's the travel for me. Like I just went to Melbourne over the holidays. I don't really feel like, um, I've got another eight hour drive in me to get down there.
00:24:03
Speaker
Um, and I want to do the snowy's 21 K. Um, cause I think it would just be cool to be there to watch the 50 K and also like see everyone that's heading down there and um yeah it'd just be a nice like low-key race to jump into before buffalo yeah yeah i like it and like as we'll talk about later i like the idea of kind of racing the local races a bit more yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll jump into that topic later but um first let's get an update from you james um how have you been going building back from the injury i hope
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's been almost completely plain sailing. um Just before Christmas, I had my my right leg to the bad leg. it's It started hurting, a different hurt, but I know after having the reoccurrence already mid mid-year, I i so stopped immediately.
00:24:57
Speaker
um and just got a scan. Bone was perfect. Soft tissue was perfect. And I've now worked out that it's, I think my bike doesn't fit me quite right. And I've got like both in both hips, my hip labrums have been torn for, for years. And I think being in that sort of compressed state and you doing a lot of riding had just sort of referred pain down to my quad. And so it was more coming from the hip and stemming down, but it ended up in the like very similar place to where all of the awareness had been from both of the fractures. yeah,
00:25:26
Speaker
that That cut a week off, which has pushed the the kind of return back by a week. But aside from that, it's actually been like plain sailing. a phil I I've been allowed to incorporate a little bit of hills, again, sort of 150 meters, 200 meters max over twelve k So it's not like it's hilly. But even going up them, I'm finding that all the work I've been doing in the gym, i still feel really strong uphill.
00:25:53
Speaker
I'm just obviously nowhere near as fifth. And if I tried to run fast, it would be horrible right now, but like, i actually don't feel that bad. Um, so it's quite encouraging to be like, okay, as long as we keep, keep just following the plan, keep taking it slow and not get too caught up. Cause I think, I think I said this last time I was on, like, I feel like I'm in this really dangerous spot where everything feels better and you want to do more and more. And the smart side of my brain is getting a bit quieter and the dumb side,
00:26:23
Speaker
is getting a bit louder and so I have to like I'm I'm forcing myself to message my coach and be like hey I know this is a probably a bad idea but like I wouldn't say yes to this but I'm still going to ask and then inevitably he says yep you're right that's a bad idea we're not going to do that um but it for for my brain I have to have very clear like all right this is your clear limit you can't push past this or actually you can because especially after having it twice yeah I'm also i can feel like the tendency to hold back a bit as well as like sometimes I feel like I need to do less sometimes I feel like I want to do more and it's just this really weird place of not really yeah just I guess still not trusting my body especially with this with with that kind of awareness that I was having so
00:27:07
Speaker
it's it's a weird feeling and i don't know when it's gonna stop either um i yeah like every time i go down a hill i'm from for the way that i normally run like going really really slow and trying to take really tiny little steps so i'm just like in my mind not putting any weight through my leg which you can obviously not completely avoid but um yeah it's It will be the day that I can run downhill and not have to think about it. I think that that will be a pretty special day for me because it's definitely nowhere near that at the moment. But this week coming, well, last week was four hours of running, like four one hour runs, including on Saturday, i went with SJ to Bogan to Hotham and did a run at the top of Falls. And that was kind of cool. ah Got to run up the top of the mountain without running up the mountain, which I'm quite happy about.
00:27:56
Speaker
um And then near did this week's five days. a running and four and a half hours total with some variance between the runs so i feel like and I four days like day on day off and then what one back to back day it just feels like always waiting to run like every day I'm not running I'm like I want to run I want to run I want to run so which is like it's it's nice like all that excitement is still there so it's it's encouraging I've just got to keep being patient and keep waiting which is getting harder the closer you get the longer a day's run
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, and so did you have like a scan um that showed it was totally like totally healed before you started running? So ah had so the the first injury just had the one scan in February when it broke. Then got another scan, i think it was end of July or beginning of August, and then I got it re-scanned at 13 weeks and it showed like really really really mild bonadema what you but probably if we scanned a lot of trail runners in a big block you might find that in their feet just from impact um like other places but because it was with me coming back we were like cool no we we'll keep that off yeah so i took another two weeks off didn't get another scan at that point luke coach and also the sports car i'm working with
00:29:15
Speaker
he was like no you'll be fine now um the return to run was really long and very like it was double the duration that the last one took um because we repeated every step and then yeah it was kind of to honest it was nice to have this scan i'd already mentioned to luke can i just get a scan at the six month mark or the three month mark like after the last one just to show me that there's nothing there and i am very from for for my head just seeing that scan and getting the report of being like essentially your leg is perfect um was like, okay, cool. What we've done already has worked really well. Like I'm running, there's no issues. Um, and even, even down to like, there's no soft tissue stuff going on. So that was really nice to know. Cause we are doing a lot of load through my quads. Like most of my runs have been in severe doms. So that takes a little bit of the pop out the legs. Um,
00:30:07
Speaker
got to the point now where been to pull the volume back a bit on the strength and increase it a bit on the running side. yeah Um, but yeah, it's kind of nice to see that all of that wasn't causing too much damage and, and the running was, was fine. But yeah, I am, even though I would have liked to have not obviously had the scare because the, the few days where I was thinking that it had come back, I was just like, I don't know if I can do this again. Like I've each the first time was like, cool, it's a bone, it's annoying, like, I've obviously done something wrong, I'll try and learn from it in in this period or from recovery and I'll be fine. And the second time was like, oh, okay, like, yep, I've made some mistakes with the women overseas and hiking too much, I can see that, but it still feels like this, like, for it to go back all the way to a foray, like a really high grade bone stress, I was like, this seems a bit weird. And then we found about the the hereditary stuff with my bones. And then it kind of all made a bit of sense. I was like, all right, now we're taking the right drugs. We're doing everything right. And it's like, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard to just kind of go and accept. Cool. All right. I'm back in the crutches. I've got another probably 16 weeks and I've got another 10 weeks of a return to run. And so there goes the whole of another year. Like we're, we're 11, literally 11 months. Well, tomorrow will be 11 months to the day. I have my first scan because on my birthday,
00:31:26
Speaker
And to think that like the entire year has gone and then there was potentially another one to like another period to face. It was hard, but I'm very, very glad it's it's not. And it has probably also helped that dumb so that dumb voice in my head shut up a little bit more as well.
00:31:42
Speaker
the reality of facing again. I was like, no, I'm not, don't want to force that one, which has being like i I was talking to Luke. So like the big thing we're trying to get back for is Sean and I going back to Europe in July, August, cause my mom's 70th birthday, early August. And we're doing the TMB route as a fast pack over, I think four days or so, four or five days. So we, we designed it that we could hike the whole thing. It'd be big hiking days, but the intention is obviously to run hike it.
00:32:09
Speaker
um And so every decision that I make from now to there in the past has been to get myself back to that point. So originally I had a UTA 50 ticket, not to race, but just simply to get the stones because I really want to do ICC at some point.
00:32:24
Speaker
And we just sat with Siobhan a couple weeks ago and we both, were she she she put it to me first because I probably wouldn't have thought about this myself. um But she was like, do you think you should just do the 22K? Like you can still, still double stones. Like you're still going to get some, some to put into the ballot.
00:32:40
Speaker
And then it doesn't risk TMB. And I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And like i'm I'm not going to be fit for a 50K. So it's going to be a real slog for what it should be. And it is a higher risk, even if I can do the long runs, it's like, should you do the long runs? Yeah.
00:32:53
Speaker
So, I think it's just been a reminder that, yeah, even though that I'm back to running and I'm definitely not out of it, but like until I hit the one year mark, so end of July, basically when we do the TMB, that being on the conservative side of decision making is going to be a lot smarter than. Oh yeah, 100%. I've met it with a risk.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think like after what you've been through, like, it's worth it to just be a bit more conservative and just patient. Like you're still young enough to have like plenty of running and races in you. So yeah yeah, I wouldn't rush to get into anything. Like um you've got heaps of time.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I think like when I, when the injury happened, it wasn't like I was feeling overtraining, like I was loving it and I was getting, like I was in the best shape I've ever been in. And I'm just like, I'm really excited to work hard and it's kind of nice to be in this position to just be excited to do stuff yeah again. So, cause there's definitely, when I tried to do Tower Era 100k a couple of years ago, ah for three months, I hated every single run because I was just trying to do a race that I'd signed up for. um and i was and i had had no clue and it didn't at that point it never crossed my mind to drop down to the fifty k because i made it i think 58k through and like felt it was easy i was just quit so because you just had no reason to be there it's bit like what sj was saying about doing a kind of going into a race and having to reframe it and go cool this is just going to be a hard training run because it's it's not like it's not the a race but it's like i had that
00:34:20
Speaker
in the a race and so it's like i just don't want to let myself go back to there so i don't know basically trying to say that a year off ironically has sort of lit the fire so much stronger which i'm excited to do something with when i can Yeah.
00:34:34
Speaker
Can confirm that everyone in our household is happy that you are running because my son needs someone else other than me to run with. It's been really nice as having someone text him and say, get out of bed. You're going for a Thanks. We're glad that you're running.
00:34:52
Speaker
no it's good and it's been is it and like so much for i'm sure everyone listening so much my social side is running so that's been been very nice and i'm probably a lot more talkative on a run than i am in person if that makes any sense i think there's something about especially with other guys always nice to for a shoulder to shoulder running along we'll talk about all our worries and ups and downs but face to face and we just sort of because there's no eye contact yeah i think yeah you can disclose anything and no one will see you yeah yeah but there's there's so much about like people's lives that they've missed out on in the last nine months or so like people are pregnant and i didn't know about all that kind of stuff so it's nice to actually be back in that circle um obviously i could have reached out to them but it's yeah i don't know why
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah. I feel like when you injured, you just kind of like switch into a different routine and like you just, I don't sometimes you just don't really want to think about running as much. So you're not like reaching out to the people that you usually run with. Yeah. I think and I'm an anomaly in this and I get that because everybody that I've spoken to has has said that answer, Jess, but my my response was I just doubled down on work. So like,
00:36:05
Speaker
coaching as my business is thriving and it's because I've had this year off that I've been able to do that so I've been able to invest more time in growing it and it's me as a coach and going to races like I'm actually and in this podcast I'm more involved in running now than I was when I got injured and I probably love the sport more now without me in it I just would also love to be doing it that would be great but yeah no it's i think it's more the fact that i get very i'm very singularly minded so when i'm whatever i'm doing that's my thing and so i would wake up and i'd work and i go to bed and then it comes to the weekend and i'm like oh i just want to sit on the couch and chill and then i would forget to message people and be like oh yeah you can do this thing called catching up and it doesn't have to be a run um but yeah i i also know that most people when they lose running and they're runners it's really hard to be around the running community because it's just a reminder of what you can't do
00:36:58
Speaker
Not but just a community. I didn't want to see a mountain. When I was injured, my husband's like, let's go to Bright. And I was like, no, we're not going anywhere near that place. i don't want to see fun mountains. I don't want to see anyone on fun mountains.
00:37:14
Speaker
um Then I realised had to get over that pretty quickly because, you know, in the scheme of things, injuries are ah hopefully short-lived, but you get quite, I do personally, quite short.
00:37:27
Speaker
I don't know, angry about anything that looks like what you want to be on. So, yeah. yeah And like, it's, it's easy to say that there, it's a trivial thing. Like we go and run and even Jess, you're sponsored, but it's not your full-time job. So it's like, it is this, this hobby that we will choose to do. And it's like, so what if you lose it? Like you just find something else, but like it,
00:37:47
Speaker
when you run and I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast understands it like it's it's not the just the running it's what running does for the rest of our lives and who we are as a person and how we interact with our family and like it's it's so much deeper than that and so yeah it makes it makes sense when you feel like even if it's just for a day or for a week or for a month you you feel a bit like woe is me and I want to go to the I don't know where's flat broken hill instead of going to Brighton yeah my dad used to say to me um about pillars holding up a foundation and one of those pillars is running but if that pillar falls down you need you need something in the other three that are yeah are keeping the structure up so um i don't know how well i uh always acted upon his quite wise advice but um it was always on back of my head. was like, what are my other pillars? I like mountain biking. Oh, I like wineries.
00:38:43
Speaker
Oh, I have kids. Oh, I have this that. So, yeah. You've got to have the the rest of those pillars, I guess. so Yeah. I like how you didn't mention your husband as one of those pillars.
00:38:57
Speaker
ah What would he be in terms of the structure? he Raise the empire foundation. He's what every single pillar is laid on. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. not He's pretty great. Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker
A quick break in the show to thank Bix. Bix has just come out with their 30 gram gel in two brand new flavors. This is a new gel, new flavors. You've got the choice of the salted strawberry or the berry. The salted strawberry is also packing 300 milligrams of sodium as an increase, whereas the berry has 200 milligrams. Both make them perfect for the conditions we have in Australia, 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.
00:39:50
Speaker
As you know, bix has been supporting the show from the start and it literally helps keep the podcast coming to you every week. So if you want to support the show, level up your own nutrition game, head over to the Bix website, use our brand new code PEAK, P-E-A-K for 20% off at checkout. And with that, let's get back to the show.
00:40:07
Speaker
Amazing. um Cool. So, yeah, we touched on it a bit before, but now I just wanted to jump into our next topic, which is we're going to discuss again um the UTMB carbon offset policy. So we did touch on it a bit last week where we sort of brushed over it fairly fairly lightly. We didn't have a lot of context to add um but basically just to go over it again, UTMB have added an extra cost onto the entry fees for this year say um and which is affecting Australians the most um where it's basically an extra cost depending on how you're travelling to the event. So
00:40:57
Speaker
um if that is by plane and it's also a factor of distance. So Australians are having to pay up to like 200 euros extra, um which is essentially – um double the entry or like another entry fee on top of what you're already paying. um So it's becoming a very expensive, um it's ah's already very expensive, but it's becoming even more so. And I think it is sort of weighing up
00:41:31
Speaker
It's sort of adding to the decision-making process of a lot of Australians um that are thinking about travelling over. Was it something that um altered your decision, SJ, in doing OCC?
00:41:44
Speaker
To be, it was definitely consideration. um I honestly, I think I had already made up my mind that I wasn't going to go, but it was probably the icing on the cake that that solidified that I'd I was going to do something else. um Yeah. And that's not, um it's not from like wanting to in like avoid any sort of environmental responsibility or or anything like that. it's It's more just the realities of, okay, well then there's there's essentially a $400 entry fee for OCC and then a $400 carbon offset or close to $400. I'm just talking around numbers here. um
00:42:29
Speaker
that's $800 just to be on the start line and that doesn't include sort of getting there. It it just makes it quite expensive. And then i guess for me there was just um I was just reading a little bit of information around it about um what it was being used for and how it was calculated. And there was just lots of questions and thoughts that I had um about it. And I guess to be clear, I don't um i don't necessarily, in fact, I don't at all think offsetting our um carbon footprint for travelling or overseas travel is a bad thing at all. And I think that most um trail runners that um engage in trail running um in good faith would agree that we we want to contribute to the sustainability of the environments that we use. But I just, I feel like, first of all, for me, the amount um seemed quite hefty. And then maybe the lack of transparency around, well, what is it being used for? um Like if they're getting an extra $400 from
00:43:38
Speaker
every Australian that's going over an X amount of hundred dollars from um other participants. um And my understanding is that the money is going towards projects and um that 100% could potentially be the case. But I guess it's just a lack of transparency in terms of what projects are they are they um putting the money towards. And then I guess, um yeah, sort of we want to know that the money is going towards something good and perhaps the cynic in me might.
00:44:13
Speaker
um If these things are not transparent, it's hard for um ideas to not creep in about how the money might be used or or maybe misused. is it Is it sitting in an account earning money?
00:44:27
Speaker
compound interest and then being used as a donation, which is then a tax write-off for the company. or like i'm yeah It'd just be nice to know, one, how did they come up with the money with that figure and how is it being used? And then I feel like if those if those questions were sort of answered, then I don't ah don't think people would have that much of ah of a problem with it it's just yeah the lack of transparency maybe for me yeah so what um sparked us wanting to sort of jump into this topic again was um we received an email from one of our listeners uh gab who's actually one of my athletes as well um so he did a bit of a deep dive um into the
00:45:12
Speaker
just like some, like running the numbers, I guess, into theoretically how much it would actually cost per person to cover the carbon footprint of the event. um And with his calculations, um he sort of found out that if they had done it in a way where the cost was spread across every participant,
00:45:38
Speaker
um that cost would only be three to four euros per person. um So I guess the question is, is it actually ethical to be charging people from further like countries that are further away so much more when they could have done this in a way that wouldn't really like affect everyone individually because three to four US dollars extra isn't very much. um
00:46:11
Speaker
So yeah, I guess it is pretty frustrating from our point of view. i um When I sort of first thought about it, I was like, oh, it makes sense in a way because just imagining like being someone from France who, for them, it's like a local kind of race. Like I'd be pretty annoyed if they charging me an extra fee because of other people that are wanting to travel there.
00:46:38
Speaker
but now that I've sort of seen the numbers, like it definitely it definitely does, yeah, raise a few questions in my mind as to like whether it's it's ethical to be doing it this way. It sort of seems a bit more, um yeah, like a a bit more like a profit They're trying to keep their profit a bit more rather than like um yeah rather than thinking about how it's going to affect people that are traveling from around the world. But yeah, what what are your thoughts, James?
00:47:09
Speaker
I think it's tricky. um The 25 euros piece, like I spent a lot of time yesterday looking into this, so I didn't come onto here and it sounded like an absolute... numpty which was very likely knowing me um but it's it seems like there's very like there's different types of credits there's different like there's different um what's the word like ah companies that that will put them like a higher quality or a lower quality credit and if it's like actually taking carbon out of the or carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere versus replanting trees etc so they have different costs associated with them mostly because of the
00:47:43
Speaker
the cost to to actually apply apply those credits. And so when I was looking at that, 25 euros was like, cool, that makes sense. Like that that is a number that makes complete sense. But I need full transparency about how much that credit costs for the company, whether it's EcoAct, who's and who's the people that are um ah putting this in place for UTMB or UTMB, how much credits cost for them to purchase.
00:48:05
Speaker
And then exactly what is that going to do? And they said that there was a 2014, a 2024 report on it and I could not find it. um So transparency, as you said, think SJ, like that's the big thing for me right now is like, I'm actually reading this. I'm like, okay, I'm fine with, that's the cost to adequately offset my travel to your race. And I've chosen to mi make that entry then fine. but I need to know exactly where that money is going, how it's broken down, what the cost to the organization of,
00:48:35
Speaker
imposing this as well because they're doing checks about your home address and your travel itinerary and like how much extra work are they giving themselves rather than as your athlete said gab as gab said if they just made it a blanket like okay we've if we pay for this level of of credit and the event pollutes this amount we're going to spread that across the 10 000 plus participants and it's then equitable because they've created a World Series final. So if they want to bring everybody to this one location, then it doesn't matter if you're from France or from Australia. The equitable solution is to make it a blanket cost that's also then a lot more affordable for people because I think I think i read somewhere that like 80% of entrants are from mainland Europe.
00:49:17
Speaker
So the reality is is's like there's actually not that many people coming this far. So it's sore only affecting a small proportion And the US is like half the cost what costs for us. And even Asia is like two thirds of the cost. So it's not like that bad if they did that. I think when I was going through all this, the the thing that ah I said to you guys before we came on, like I'm kind of sort of confused and I've...
00:49:38
Speaker
had like a mirror held up to me about what my decisions are and I'm not really comfortable with it but it's it's good but so ah there's the the element of UTMB is massive and they've created this policy so that we're aware of the impact of our choices and from that perspective I really agree with it the thing I really don't agree with is that they say that the polluter pays like that's this their slogan and they they've been like they did a article on the green runners And the because 80 or 86% of the pollution comes from travel, they've gone, right, we're going to hit the participants with the tax essentially for that.
00:50:13
Speaker
But I don't really see what they're doing from a company perspective to just physically reduce the emissions from a standpoint. And so... they like in my mind like they've created a world series and there's a clear final for it and everything is about accumulating as many stones as you can possibly get by doing as many of their races because they're a for-profit company and so they're encouraging either domestic travel for us to go to UTA or COSI or they're encouraging international travel whether that's Tarawera or we go to the states or Asia or to Europe and so they really want to reduce their their footprint they're
00:50:46
Speaker
get rid of that requirement. Like just make it a ballot system. And then also if they reduce their entries, I did some quick maths on this. um So I'm really going open one here. um They said that in 2024, they got 6,000 cars off the road, which saved 200 tons. And they were really proud of that. Getting from Australia to France is 6.4 tons of emissions.
00:51:09
Speaker
So if they just like reduced their entry numbers by 500, assuming a rough average, that would be equivalent of taking 6,000 cars off the road. And so, yes, okay, it takes away 500 entrants, but it's already really hard to get in. So, like, when there's 10,000, 10,500 people, so take away 5% of the entrance.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yeah, 5% of the entrance. Like, it's not that bad. And that would make a huge impact on the emissions of UTMB Mont Blanc, like Tour de Mont Blanc as an event. So, yeah, I don't know.
00:51:43
Speaker
I think it's ah just another case of it's probably been rushed in my mind to be put out there. They haven't fully considered all the different geographies and how it's going to really impact them. And the fact that they've just clearly gone, well, so what? Like everyone wants to come to the event. If you want to come to the event, you pay for these offsets, which is great. Like I agree, it like I said, i completely agree with the offsets, but I just disagree with how it's been done. Sorry, that was a long answer to that question.
00:52:08
Speaker
If it was like it's about the environment, but I guess it's problematic too where they've created a system where um you are encouraged to travel globally to collect stones.
00:52:24
Speaker
So it seems like they've created a system potentially that you're wanting people to travel to other races, but then you're now sort of charging the participants more to rectify it.
00:52:38
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Yeah. Which just doesn't make any sense. Like it it's. yeah We should definitely acknowledge our environmental cost to the environment with traveling. But I just, yeah, I like why just this, is it just this one race?
00:52:53
Speaker
No, so their intention is to roll this out across the entire UTMB network, which like i'm I'm all for. I'm for events having a system of going, like this is this is the offset for you for your travel. like if we can of If we can afford to pay for the entry, then you should be able to offset your production to get there. But...
00:53:14
Speaker
It's, yeah, I know. It it just it just seems like it's, well, clearly it's missed the mark because like this policy came out in 2025, but I think it's because all the entrants, like the entries closed, you said midnight tonight as Monday as we're recording. So it's like everyone's being like, oh, what what is this? Why am i doubling my entry fee?
00:53:33
Speaker
I think I mentioned and um in my comment that the the psychology of it is is quite interesting to me in terms of if if the entry fee for OCC was just $800, but it didn't mention this, would I just pay it? Like, would I just be like, well, do you know what? that That's how much it costs to enter this race. I either want to or I don't. But there's there's something about that. Well, I know it's $400 to enter the race and now they want another 192 euro, which is close to $400 as a contribution towards these this project that they're doing, which I don't know anything of. And it's just...
00:54:09
Speaker
um you you just don't feel confident about what what you're giving. But then ultimately I'm on board with giving something. It just seems the the number for me just seems quite high. um And my, I guess the the sad part is like, it's already a really expensive race, but it would like, it's, you don't ever want these things to become completely unattainable to people that have worked hard together. whilst yeah another $400 might seem like nothing, like maybe maybe it is, maybe that is like just the straw that breaks the camel's back for yeah for some people in terms of being able to go or to go multiple times. i don't know.
00:54:54
Speaker
And it feels like this model that they've chosen is potentially going to bring the sport backwards a step in like the progress that it's made in growth so like it'll probably stop people traveling from international to Australia for our UTMB races and vice versa to like other countries so like that means that the depth in each race within each country is probably going to be less which essentially means like, yeah, like that progress that we made with like creating more competitive fields um in our sport is probably going to go backwards a bit. Yeah. Yeah. It's,
00:55:35
Speaker
It's going to be an interesting one to see how they roll this out the whole way. And I guess UTMB is ah the best test bed for this because there's a high participation number, it's high visibility, but also it's incredibly high demand. And so they can afford to slip up.
00:55:48
Speaker
yeah And they're still going to get the numbers. It's it's it's it's like the whole thing when them two years ago when they opened up the UTMB race in Canada. It's slipping my mind now. But it's ah essentially back...
00:56:05
Speaker
Back then it was perceived that maybe they ran Gary Robbins who had an event up there out of the where the event was. and Then UTMB created the exact same event like three months later. And everyone was like, oh boycott UTMB. And Zach Miller sent an email to all the athletes and being like, where are we racing? It's not UTMB. And it made jackal difference. Like, We are still at the spot where UTMB is known to be the most competitive ultra in the scene. Like Sierra's announced the most competitive race, but like the most competitive race. People are still flocking to it. Everyone's still doing to it. We're all still going to UTA and Kozzi trying to get our stones because that's where the competitive fields are or that's how you get to the finals. and
00:56:43
Speaker
And they have some epic events. Like they've they've bought up some of or even created some of the most beautiful events in the world. But... the end of the day, they can afford to do really whatever they want because they're UTMB. And we're that I think they're going to have to do something really, really bad or really, really, really expensive for us to take to take take notice. and Because the end of the day, like...
00:57:06
Speaker
Morally, yes, it's expensive, but it's the right thing. It's not like they should jacked up prices by $400 and just said costs of doing business or tariffs or whatever excuse they wanted to use. They've gone, well, this is the cost of you coming to from an environmental perspective to this event. And so this is the cost you're going to be imposed with. So like whether we agree with the amounts or not, like the meaning behind it is,
00:57:25
Speaker
good i think um and so yeah and it's just it's ah interesting when you realize how powerful utmb is in trail running and this was the whole conversation i had with mike duggan um on the interview with him pre-christmas is that we have the golden trail series you have utmb the world trail majors um you've got like obviously sky running and mountain running some others he mentioned, but like there is no governing body for this sport, like world athletics technically, but it's, it's, that it's still, it's all kind of like adjacently operated by for-profit organizations and they're just going to keep doing what they want until something changes.
00:58:03
Speaker
Hence in his case, why he's pushing the Olympics. Um, But yeah, it's an interesting one. It's easy to get a bit fired up on. Yeah. As I said before, I don't feel like a lot of trial runners have um a worry about like no one's trying to avoid there their footprint, like their environmental, um the environmental cost of traveling. They're just, um yeah. maybe Maybe it just crept up too quickly. Maybe it was just a shock. Maybe people, yeah.
00:58:33
Speaker
do question. Or maybe it's done differently, yeah. Like what I said earlier about the mirror being held to my face, like it's confronting when you're like, is this really what it all costs? And this is my impact. Like how i I don't want to pay more for these events. um I quite like what it what it is at the moment. Like I i want to kind of my head in the sand and avoid this.
00:58:52
Speaker
And so I wouldn't be surprised if if if a degree of the kickback is that as well, is that it's uncomfortable to be told, yeah, that destination race you want to go this is the real cost of it.
00:59:06
Speaker
It definitely brings up brings about, yeah, if you like I guess a pitch first staying for staying local. Yes. Yeah, but then don't know. I don't know whether or not it's worth like considering with Kyle running, like I feel like we are quite environmentally conscious. Like we expect coupless events. um We expect events where you there are potentially disqualifications or time penalties if you don't bring in like if you if you leader on course and things like that like i think as a sport we um we expect sort of um environmental rules i guess so feel like people are happy to to or should be happy to contribute but i don't know if the odd like
00:59:56
Speaker
I don't know if trial runners are the ones doing a whole heap of the flying around the world all the time. Like, I'm definitely not. I may be going once every second year. So I don't know. But like, it's the whole point of of like, we can't change the world, but you can make your own difference. And and like, it doesn't matter what other people do. And and actually, I'd push back that trial runners and runners in general are environmentally conscious because if we were, we would never have race t-shirts. We would never have medals. Like, they are...
01:00:26
Speaker
like completely wasteful and yeah you get given a race bib treat like what i do i treat that as my medal as my medal i i don't if i can opt out i will and i'll reject if i can't so they can hopefully they haven't put a date and they can use it the next year um because it doesn't think everyone gets one like it i don't think so that there are a lot of things that we can still do to change the sport in a positive light like this it doesn't cost us any more money and actually i kind of and this might not go down very well, but they take it with a grain of salt that I am a race director, is that it would put a little that little bit more money back into the race directors, which would hopefully encourage them to create an even better event and to put more money into it because it's more commercially viable.
01:01:09
Speaker
yeah Because a lot of, especially big scale events are really like they're running that fine line. Most, a lot don't even make profit. So it like it can make a really big difference to have $5 more a participant, or if you take away the shirts, $15 more participant that can really add up. And then hopefully a degree of that is passed on, passed back onto the experience. I think the the thing for the thing for me is that the UTMB events for the most part are very well run and they're very big and they have an atmosphere and it feels like an occasion to go to them it feels a bit like trail running festival especially if you've ever gone to utmb it's just incredible and in australia there are some events doing that a lot of them still have that grassroot style which is great for your local like 10k to half marathon event but for other ones i think like
01:01:57
Speaker
I actually wonder if if we were forced to race more domestically or encourage race more domestically, would that elevate the quality of the races that were here and maybe create a better experience as well? Or would they just do nothing with it? These are the questions that I have no answers to. but Yeah, graph right you raise a good point.
01:02:13
Speaker
The other thing to consider is like if we are wanting trail running to become an Olympic sport, like if you compare it to all of the other Olympic sports, international results are weighed on a lot more heavily. Like when, ah say the at the AIS, when we're looking at um different athletes getting support,
01:02:37
Speaker
like we're looking at international results we're not really looking at domestic results because international results is where we're going to be able to tell how they're going to perform on an international stage so if we are limiting like the exposure of Australian trail runners to international races I mean it's just UTMB but it's Yeah, if we are considering like the carbon footprint and people choosing not to travel for those races, it could affect um how the sport performs, like if how the sport is seen um and whether it becomes an Olympic sport. Imagine if it was in like five years time, they worked out that this UTMB policy is what stopped try running getting the Olympics. Yeah. um
01:03:24
Speaker
But like, you're you're right, Jess, because like we're obviously there's two sides to every conversation at the moment. There's the the the bulk participant perspective and then the elite running perspective. And from that perspective about getting the sport into the Olympics, which has trickle down effects all the way through the field, like, yeah,
01:03:40
Speaker
with the last thing you want to do is discourage, especially Australians, to going overseas when it's already a huge trip. And especially young Australians that typically wouldn't have ah massive amount of funds behind them to then have to go, well, yeah, cool, you can go and travel to this race. It's going to cost you three grand out your savings, but then here's another $400 you've got to pay to go and do the event.
01:03:59
Speaker
Like, maybe they just don't bother. And then we don't develop our pathway. And then if it ever did get into the Olympics, we don't feature. Whereas we're showing at the moment in a lot of capacities that we actually...
01:04:10
Speaker
can feature as a country. We just need the opportunities to train over there and race over there and spend more time. And yeah.
01:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of things to consider. um But, yeah, thanks for sending in the email, Gab, and you've definitely sparked an intro to the um yeah very well problems today Yeah, reach out to us on social media if um any listeners have anything else they want to weigh up on. um But we will move in on to our next topic, um which is the Snowys podcast.
01:04:48
Speaker
rice which is coming up um on the 22nd of February, um which is actually the Australian Short Trial Champs. we've got our hands on a bit of a start list.
01:05:00
Speaker
um And at the moment, it's looking pretty hot on the women's side. um A little bit less so in the men's. um But, yeah, if we just run through the field list that we have at the moment in terms of elites, we have ah for the women, we have Demi Caldwell, Britt Harridan, Jill Fowler and Sophie b Broome.
01:05:24
Speaker
um And then in the men's, we have Ben Burgess and Josh Godding. um So, yeah, there's a few things that we have sort of thought about that might be contributing to just like the slightly lower ah field size that we're seeing. Sorry, Tarawara is the weekend before um this race, which is obviously another UTMB race. um It's a golden ticket race for Western States.
01:05:52
Speaker
um There's a lot of incentive for people to go across and race that and the timing just clashes. um And then we also have Warburton Trail Running Festival on in early March. so I think that's the weekend after. think it's two weekends after, yeah. Yeah, two weeks after. So that one features the Donna Double, which um we've just found out has quite a lot of prize money. So they're throwing out $5,000 for the win there, um which is obviously going to bring in ah the more shorter distance trail runners to that event. um So, yeah, the question we ask is how much weight do people put in to getting
01:06:36
Speaker
An auto spot for the Asia Pacific Trail Chance. There isn't much out available yet on the Asia Pacific Trail Running Chance. So we did have the first iteration in 2024. So that was in South Korea. um And I actually went to that and I thought the event was really cool. It was really well run. It was awesome for Australians because we did really well um and I thought it was a really exciting addition to international racing for Australians to sort of um get some competition but not be so out of our depth um that we sort of usually are in the European races. um But, yeah, it's sort of a little bit unsure at the moment as to whether –
01:07:26
Speaker
yeah what the sort of deal is with Asia-Pacific tri-running champs. um And, yeah, we also wanted to ask, um yeah, what do people think about, what do you guys think about, like, um would you be wanting to qualify for Asia-Pacific tri-running champs this early in the year or would you prefer to be doing that qualifying race a bit closer to that October. I think it's October. and they've I think they've actually just changed the date. It's now the last weekend in November.
01:08:00
Speaker
um I was having a chat to one of the guys at ORTRA today and he was like, I'm pretty sure I just saw a post that they've decided to change the date because there's no website. If you search Asia Pacific Champs, it says 2024 APTRC and they haven't updated anything. So which is from what I understand, that's ITRA.
01:08:16
Speaker
dragging the chain on that one, hence why there's not much out there, which is impacting it I think. But SJ, what are your thoughts on Jess's question and qualification windows? um i I mean, personally, i prefer knowing that I'm doing something earlier. um if I was, if I was wanting to go Asia Pacific, I would, I would probably be going to Jindabyne and trying to get on the team that way. But I, I feel like knowing for me, knowing earlier is, is more helpful rather than, um, knowing just before yeah going to the events just because I, yeah, like to plan out what I'm doing and taking time off work and whatnot. So, um, for me, uh, an earlier window is definitely, um,
01:09:04
Speaker
different my reason for not going uh Jindabyne is it it wasn't a course that like it's beautiful up there and I think it would really challenge me because it's uh there's not a huge amount of elevation and it would um make me uh run a bit more rather than get comfortable hiking. But it wasn't, yeah, for this year, it wasn't something that I, um yeah, that I decided on. I definitely thought about it and I thought it could be fun and it would challenge me in different ways. But, yeah.
01:09:35
Speaker
I wasn't motivated by um making the Asia Pacific team through that means. um yeah Yeah. And there's like, obviously there's the the discretionary spots as well, which they're still waiting, but it sounds like it's going to be very similar to the top 30, but potentially more distance based, not overall. So you're not competing with a 100 mile specialist for trying to get into a short trail team to get just to make that top, to make the top 30 cutoff to be considered.
01:10:03
Speaker
But don't know from a, I severely doubt I would ever find myself in the position of trying to race my way into an Asia Pacific. So I'll put the coaching hat on here because I feel like that's probably more playful. Like I, especially with an event like Snowys, which is very different terrain. Like it's a very different type of training to get,
01:10:22
Speaker
the fastest time you can get on the snowy course and what we will expect to get at China. And so not that you can't train into it. Like, for example, if SJ, if you and I started working together mid last year and you were like, that is my goal, like we would be able to put you into a position because of the level of athlete that you are in in the country. and i'm going to make real uncomfortable right now where um trying to get that spot is something that you would be attaining for.
01:10:47
Speaker
like not saying guarantee or anything like that, but like you you would train specifically for that event and it just has different demands. Like it's still a 50K, it's just a lot more runnable, a lot more single track to a degree. You've the the ah altitude, the heat that's going to be in February. And so if you qualify, you then have 10 months to completely change back to what's most likely going to be more of a hiking, humidity, stairs, tougher terrain. And so you have that time to to to do your season. But I can also see that like the the speed, especially when you've got people like Demi and Brittany lining up on that start line, like, you know that realistically, if you're a female now, if you are not in the low seventeen s even pushing into the 16s for a 5K, you probably just don't have the raw speed to run a course like that unless you are so efficient.
01:11:35
Speaker
at single tracks or you have an incredible engine from years of training, which is what someone that's been in the sport for like 10 years might have, um especially as they've been doing that 50K distance. And so, yeah, it's it's tricky. Like if I was, if I put my my my head, if I assumed I was a in a much better running condition than I am right now and I'm looking at that starter list and I'm looking at Ben's name,
01:11:56
Speaker
and Josh's name like Ben's just proven to be incredibly versatile like we we probably think him as a mountain guy but the dude's got wheels and he's started like he's training in a specific way now for this style of event so he's gonna be incredibly hard to beat Josh is really fast and very would probably be very good at this style of event and I'm sure there's more guys that are looking at as a couple of names that we know are interested that haven't entered yet so we won't say but they're fast guys. And so you're going to, from a guy's perspective, like again, talking about or a 10k, you're going to have to be a low 15 guy really to have a shot if this pulls the competitive field that it does. Um, so, but yeah, that, well, let's say, I would say from a coach perspective that having a bigger window is better. Cause then you can also plan, you can, you can take time off. Like if it was a race August, for example,
01:12:43
Speaker
you would have to peak for that race, run yourself in and go straight back into another big block. And especially if you've been managing niggles or you're just feeling a bit burnt out, like there's not really time to take a break in that equation, not when you're going to represent your country. So yeah, I i think the the timing of it,
01:13:02
Speaker
is good in the sense of it gives you a long time. It's a shame it's competing Tower Era. I just had a quick look at the names the Australian names that are on the Tower Era 50 list at the moment. And you've got Ella McCartney, Julia Anderson, Sarah Leavitt.
01:13:15
Speaker
um um And then yeah on the men's side, Charlie's in both, but pretty sure he's doing the hundred k But then you've got Gerald McPherson, Billy Emilia and Zach Newsham. So those are...
01:13:28
Speaker
all names I would have expected to see on this 50k start line because very similar course very very similar type of of runner um and I'm sure if we did look to the the 100k names um like Vlad you would expect to be there Charlie we just said Mikey's racing in Hong Kong this weekend um in the 100k theoretically like It's like Zoe Manning is another one in the hundred k that you would think could come down. So it it is a shame. But ah from, again, conversations with the guys Autra and they said, I can say this, is that there just simply weren't that many applications from events.
01:14:02
Speaker
So they didn't have a big pool to choose from. And then they wanted to make the window at least decent. So it kind of ended up with this one, not taking anything away from Snowys as an event. But like if you're asking why, there's always so much more to it than just who did Autra pick to be the national championships.
01:14:20
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think, um, timing wise, like I would want a bit of a break between the qualifying race and the race race. Um, just cause it's, yeah, it's a 50 K like it's, it's not a walk in a park. Um, but yeah, I think like the race that they've unfortunately landed on, um,
01:14:41
Speaker
It doesn't really tell me – like i just I just don't think it really translates at all. Just, yeah, looking at the VERT profile, it's totally different to what they're going to get in China, I think. um Well, it's – yeah, what we had in South Korea, if it's anything like that, um it yeah it's just totally different. um So, yeah, it's a bit of a shame, but hopefully we can still get a good race on the women's side and hopefully – some men that are listening to this podcast might get enticed to come out and dethrone Ben ah'll give him a run for his money.
01:15:17
Speaker
And like that, I we should say that, that start list that I got given is about 10 days old or so. So you may be listening to this and being like, I meant it. What the heck? Why have you mentioned my name? And there will probably be a name on there, especially given that it's in this, like in, um,
01:15:34
Speaker
Kosciuszko area that there'll be names that we don't recognize from Canberra and Sydney that are going to be really fast on the roads that do enough trails to make it possible to go into this. Whether they have the awareness to do that, we don't know, but there will be names we don't recognize. There always are.
01:15:45
Speaker
um But yeah, I really, if you are listening to this and you're debating it, please go and do it. Even just to get a chance to go and if it's outside of your comfort zone, go and put yourself outside of your comfort zone. You've still got five weeks. Just like there's enough time to put a bit more of a speed focus, do a lot of runnable trails and go and put a core race on.
01:16:03
Speaker
they Just create something else and make Ben and Josh work for it if you're in the guys. Because at the moment, if it's just those two, that's our two auto spots. um The women's race, as said, is is is already deeper.
01:16:16
Speaker
which that in itself is really cool to see. um And I'm very excited to see that matchup, especially like the Demi-Sofi matchup on the roller coaster and seeing how when it extends out a bit, where where does that fall? um Brittany, if you they aren't familiar with her, she was second at six foot track to Steph. So got wheels, good at this distance.
01:16:35
Speaker
Jill Fowler is like a legend to the sport and has so i a great run at Hounslow last year. So yeah, there's... We want to talk about it and we we want to make this big. So just enter do it.
01:16:47
Speaker
And yeah. Cool. And just quickly, our last topic on the news front was Jim Momsey and Kate Tishide getting announced as Trail Runner of the Year.
01:16:59
Speaker
um And then we just saw that trial ah Free Trial was getting a bit of backlash um about not having Rachel and Tricken or Killian Korth in the top 20. So, yeah, it just brings a question um as to whether, like, the 200 mile events have any relevance in Australia because it seems to be a bit more of an American style of ultra running. um
01:17:30
Speaker
And yeah, I guess like also the FKT scene. ah Personally, like when I was living in Perth, over there the fkt scene is actually massive like a lot of people are very like focused focused on going after those um and what like i guess even like after the ned brockman movement there was like a lot of people doing it on social media um because it's sort of similar like that
01:18:01
Speaker
fastest time across Australia or like fastest time on the Bibbulmun track. um It seemed to build a lot of traction over in WA. And they also love their backyard ultras over there, which I think is driven by the legendary Phil Gore. So, yeah, not so much on this side of Australia, I don't think. But, yeah, what do you guys think?
01:18:23
Speaker
SJ, do you see yourself doing a 200-mile? Not a chance. Not a chance. Yeah. Yeah, no. i still need to G myself up to maybe doing another 100K like once again. um ah Yeah,
01:18:40
Speaker
I don't, to be honest, I probably can't weigh in too much because I don't know that much about it. I didn't um i i didn't follow um the stories. But, yeah, if the question is whether or not like when they're choosing the – um like trial run the year, um i guess the pool is just so big in terms of if you're looking at your short decay trial runs and then you've got your ultra distance trial runs and then you've got your milers and then you've got your um like 200 plus. um
01:19:13
Speaker
Obviously all of those are going to be different in terms of popularity and I don't know if is the 200 miler plus like is there as many of elites or whatnot in that or like, I don't know, how competitive is it? That's kind of the question or the the point that's being raised is that the 200-mile scene has done huge things on social media. Like it is spectator-wise on YouTube, like some of the highest streamed races this year have been the 200-milers.
01:19:44
Speaker
They have a lot of – not necessarily like influencers, but athletes who are more active on socials and they are so obviously like more like content creators, but they're also good athletes. Max Jolief is, um, one of like the, the obvious ones in there. Um, but yeah, like the, the,
01:20:01
Speaker
The deep dive into the why Rachel and Killian and stuff, like i would say, there's other podcasts in the States that will cover this in more in more detail. But it seeing it, I just had the thoughts of like, Rachel Enstreen came 12th in trail runner of the year. She's predominantly a 200-maler, but is stepping down this year as well. Killian Korth, he won the triple crown of 200s over there, which...
01:20:22
Speaker
i remember all of them now i know moab is one of them i think it's moup moab um tahoe and there's one other and he got like snubbed according to his followers from that but they were saying like he won by something like 10 or 15 percent and so it's like there's no there really still isn't a competition like there isn't the depth is one or two people for most of these and even some of the more competitive ones like cocodona they're still not deep and we're also only getting the occasional like elite of the elite jump into these so like it'll be interesting seeing rachel step down to see actually where she can fall tara dower is a great example of like an incredible fkt athlete um i don't know if she's actually nailed the 200 yes but fkt is like um and then comes down and sets the course record at javelina
01:21:11
Speaker
hundreds So like a very runnable 100 mile um and by like 30 minutes or something like that. So has the range. But all I have it was made me go, well, we have 200s over here, like especially over in WA. And like there's unreasonable, can never remember the way these go around, but unreasonable east, delirious, west. Oh, yeah.
01:21:31
Speaker
There's another one. um i apologize to them, but I actually also have a feeling that maybe they might be stopping. So there's this whole movement across the world or across especially US. And then France has had them for years. Like TOR is the the main one, but we don't seem to put any focus on them. And then just like you said, the FKT scene WA seems to be really big over here.
01:21:50
Speaker
Like not really much going on. You've got Piotr and Tassie setting all these sick FKTs that no one is noticing and no one has any... comparison point either because he's either setting new routes or he's beating times that we don't know who the people are and yeah it's just it's just it's interesting to see the way the sport is going and like trail run of the year takes people from vk specialists to yeah 200 milers how hard to rank performances though of of people that are doing completely different events it's like me trying to ask like what's harder is, you know, an all-out 5K harder than an all-out 50K. Yeah. It depends. They're both hard. Like all of the, like, I, yeah, I don't know how.
01:22:32
Speaker
Yeah. It's. you know And there's calls for them to split sub-ultra and ultra, and then FreeTrail, who run runner of the year, they've said, well, there's there's already ultra runner of the year, but that's North America focused. and But if I was looking at, like, i kind even Jim Womsey's run at Worlds, which was incredible, and then you're looking at Remy Bonet's VK world record,
01:22:58
Speaker
Which is also incredible.
Trail Running's Growth and Olympics Potential
01:23:00
Speaker
It's like, how can anybody pick? Because objectively... Incredible Trail Runners of the Year award. Yeah. like And I think if you look at ITRA, they're indexed almost identically. like it's it's So yeah so it's it's interesting to say, I think it's just poor pointing to the fact, it's almost to the UTLMB thing. Again, the sport is growing so fast. It's becoming so much more... like commercially viable for businesses to come into it. There's a much bigger participant factor to it. We're starting to see a bit more of a spectator element to it especially if it does go to the Olympics. And it's just like, there's going to be all of these questions and issues and challenges along the way. there's just being another one
Aspiring for Longer Races
01:23:36
Speaker
of them. But I would, don't know if I'd ever do a 200 mile.
01:23:39
Speaker
probably would but it'd be cool to see some over here it'd be nice to be reading out results of like macree and a 200 mile race that could get behind that 200 miles that's not happening let an i don't know you might go back to perth one day and be like oh my gosh i've been missing out It was like the only time i ever considered doing a like FKT type thing because one of my friends wanted to. It's funny over there. Like everyone's just obsessed with it.
Racing vs. Fastest Known Times
01:24:11
Speaker
Actually, Jess and Ashley, Brin's question. does Do FKTs have any interest to you? Like, let's say there was in Bright a FKT that a bunch of really good people had done. Let's just say Lucy Bartholomew has the course record on it. And there's no event in June, July that you want to do. And you're kind of like, ah, like, would you go and race that to set like to, and it's actually sort of this, this stems into a question as well from Hamish about times versus like racing competition. But it's like, does, does,
01:24:43
Speaker
Does chasing a time, like, would that interest you? are you like, no, I'm here to race people, not race the clock? Jess? Oh, I don't know. Do you race Strava grounds? Yeah.
01:24:54
Speaker
It's a good sign, isn't it? Yeah. I don't mind doing it as part of training. Like, I think it, especially with trails, like, it kind of gives you a marker. Yeah. for like
Tech in Training
01:25:06
Speaker
where you're at with the training session um yeah but I think racing wise I'm definitely more motivated by racing people um and I always was like even in track I was more motivated by racing people rather than times um but yeah what do you guys think I think it's really cool that other people do it uh it's not really something that
01:25:31
Speaker
that interests me. In fact, I get nervous knowing how other people, how fast other people are on, on um segments and in, in areas I'd, yeah, I feel like it would, yeah, not, not for me, but also pretty cool.
01:25:48
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. ah Yeah. I feel like they can have a really productive place in training if there's nothing to fill that gap and you want a really hard hard effort and a nugget to chase, especially now our watches. can You can put a ghost on most watches and it will tell you if you're plus or minus from the time that you've set on that course. What?
Western Australia Racing Scene
01:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, i can't i I was listening to i has na into it i listened to a a podcast recently. i can't remember who it is now. um But they were saying that they, i think it was like they were doing a time trial or it might have even been in a race, but they had someone splits on their watch and it was like it was beeping at them. And it was saying like, you're up here, down here.
01:26:29
Speaker
Imagine if it was voice activated and it's like you are way slower than Jess Jason. You are way slower than mother. It's just like this voice berating you like you've got to stop now. Go home.
01:26:44
Speaker
Hang up the shoes.
01:26:48
Speaker
I don't like You rid of the voice. You drop like three minutes back and it's like just quit. You're not worthy. just give up. but There's a shortcut down. I'm going to change my route for you. Here you go that sounds awful it's like beeping at it's like a yeah no hopefully uh sorry jess go i think like the reason why it's stuck in wa is because like um the depth of races over there is just so thin um so it's probably like the most competitive edge that they're able to get especially in trails um yeah yeah
01:27:23
Speaker
Are there races in WA that you're like, they're on your bucket list? of and I know at some point I'm going back there for that. back yeah i want it scenario ah definitely want to do the Margaret River Ultra one day. i think once I'm ready to go beyond fifty k i'll give ah i'll give the go. But yeah let's see we We spoke about SJ and like when we came back, Siobhan and I went with my parents to Margaret River and the combination of you can go and do this really cool race on a really fun track. And then you have an incredible wine region right there on the coast. It was like a very appealing idea for a, for a trip.
01:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if I'd call it a fun track, to be honest. It's, like, very sandy, but it is beautiful. Yeah. um Cool. so yeah, now we're going to go into our results. So we did quickly cover the Bogong to Hotham So first place was the lovely SJ the women and overall, and then in second in the – ah was Kylie Murray, another female. So the ladies killed it um in the 35K.
01:28:40
Speaker
And then third overall was the first male who was Sam Ferguson. um So, yeah. yeah It's pretty cool. like You look at results and it's out of the top six, the first five are women. It's pretty fun. And we we got to meet Kylie afterwards. and it was Yeah, she was lovely. What a legend.
01:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, very lovely. And i don't know if she listens to the podcast, but she does and she listens to it tomorrow. Happy birthday, Kylie. birthday Happy birthday. day um Cool. And then jumping to the 64K, so um in first place we had Chad f Freak in the men um and he ran 7 hours 01. So That was so fast. There were so many logs down on that course. ah He must have just, I don't know,
01:29:31
Speaker
I don't know how he got over them so quickly. that's He was so, like, just so chilled, so smiley. Like, he was moving well. when we He came through the mark as I was waiting for SJ. And just dude looked locked in, but also – it looked more like he just done a 5k warmup along the aqueduct. Not that he, not that he just run for four hours and 35k through the mountains. ah And he, I was chatting to somebody else today.
01:29:58
Speaker
They met, they were, it was Fraser Darcy. He met, he messaged in about Chad and I said to him, like, i feel like Chad's result. He came fifth at GPT 50k, but because of the top three and then how good Thomas Banks was run was, we kind of like lost all of that. And so it's going to be intriguing to see where Chad pops up next because,
01:30:17
Speaker
I'm excited to see what this guy's got on for the year. yeah um and then Second place in the men, we had Tom Hines. He ran 7 hours 14. Then third was Matt Cooper in 7 hours 53.
01:30:31
Speaker
and then third was matt cooper in seven hours fifty three And then on the men's side, just a special shout-out to Joe Dorth. So he was seventh in 8 Hours 47, so awesome run by Joe. um And that sort of takes us to the women as well because closely behind was our first female, um Nicole Payton.
01:30:54
Speaker
um So she was eighth overall in 8 Hours 49. um and then that twenty second Which was a 22nd PB for her, which was cool. Yeah, amazing. It sounded like she didn't feel particularly like confident going in. No. She didn't feel like she was in in amazing shape. So 22nd PB when you're not in like your peak shape is a good sign. She had a really, really great second half, like a really great back end of that race. Yeah.
01:31:21
Speaker
I see, yeah, because she came through maybe, I want to say close to 20 minutes behind Joe at the 35k mark and finished a minute and 15 seconds. Yeah, she's really strong over over the longer distances. Yeah. Yeah.
01:31:38
Speaker
Ran really well. Yeah, continuing her amazing form um from Worlds. um
Harry Garside's Trail Running Debut
01:31:45
Speaker
And another special mention, actually, we had um Australian Olympic boxer pretty close behind Nicole Payton, Harry Garside. So he came 12th overall in 9 hours 11. So pretty cool to see him jumping into a race like this.
01:32:04
Speaker
He was also, I saw him in the first half of the race. was, um i yeah we ran together for a little bit down t-spur and he was also like super happy and smiley and yeah it sort of seemed like at that stage he was loving it i don't know how the rest of the race went for him but it was yeah he was pretty he was pretty pumped he was up for a bit of a chat and we were talking about all the logs that were falling on the on the ground that we were over and under him so yeah like he was having a great time
01:32:36
Speaker
Hopefully we'll see them in some more trail runs. Yeah.
Social Connections in Running
01:32:38
Speaker
um And then so just jumping back to the women's results, we had Tara Carson in second um in 10 hours 19 and looks like she's only 23, so very good result for a young gun.
01:32:53
Speaker
um And then third female was Beck Conroy 11 hours yeah, well done to those ladies. so yeah wrote down today's ladies It's cool to see some like bigger athletes. I've just gone onto Harry's profile and it's like 160,000 followers.
01:33:10
Speaker
um And according to his, I'll make sure sound doesn't come on. said first trail running event. Yeah. It's like, Credit to him just jumping. Well, I'm sure he's trained for it, but like jumping into a 65 K with three and a half thousand meters, it's going to take nine hours for your first event yeah and being happy and chatty and nice. Like, I feel like you could, it would be so easy when you're coming from like the best of the sport like to have that chip on your shoulder and not have that, but it looks, yeah, it, it looks like he's,
01:33:41
Speaker
would be a really good person to have in the sport at least yeah in his off season or um um I don't know his story at all, but um yeah, it's cool to see. Yeah, definitely. um so So that was our results for the week. um And then now we're going to go into some listener questions. so the first one we got in was from Steph, and I think that's one of SJ's friends. um But the question is, who is SJ's favourite training partner? Oh, I have lots of favourite training partners. um
01:34:19
Speaker
I depend on on where I am in the world. and that this is That's a very PC way of of um answering of answering this. And I feel like the people want me to choose and I'm not about it. No, it look, to me to be honest, my i I do have a favourite training person and and it's Shiv Seba.
01:34:44
Speaker
I've just done, yeah, so much running with her over the last five years um from we used to have ah have a little Wednesday group Wednesday workout wizards, we used to call it. And we'd, um, go do some, um, trail intervals down at Nail Can and, um, from long runs to adventure runs to just easy runs before work for both of us, um, runs with the dog, runs with the kids, runs, je yeah. Um, but, um,
01:35:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's only because Steph made me choose and I feel bad for answering that, but I do really love, um i just, I don't know, I love running with people.
01:35:26
Speaker
um Yeah. like Like I loved running with you and Trish, um Jess, and I love running with James as well and i love I loved the runs that I've done in Bright and like I, yeah, whichever group has been nice humans that will let me tag along. You're also my favorites. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think like that, like having training partners and like the social side of the sport is so important to me and it's like why I've i've kept doing it. So i've run I've been running since I was 12 and it's just still a part of my life because
01:36:04
Speaker
Wherever I go, like I've moved around the country, I've always been able to make new friends through the sport. um And I just love running with people. Like it's it's just so fun and it's, yeah, it's ah my big why to why I do the sport. And it's something that I've sort of been thinking about recently just – um Yeah, like I think when I moved to Canberra, like I was doing a few more social ah solo sessions um just because I like ah just when I sort of train specifically for a trail event, it doesn't really fit in with um some other people's training. And like i guess there's like probably less – it kind of sounds funny, but there's kind of like less people to jump in with sometimes.
01:36:51
Speaker
um And that's when I find like I really lack motivation. Yeah. Yeah, I really don't enjoy training solo. So i think having training partners is super valuable. And if, yeah, if there's any listeners out there that um haven't tried running with people or like haven't tried running with a group, you should definitely look for a local run club or a group to run with because I think it makes a huge difference.
01:37:17
Speaker
I absolutely agree with that, Jess, because having moved around the country numerous times, I've the first thing i would always do whenever we moved to a new state was find a running group.
01:37:31
Speaker
um And there would be lots of other defence families that I would talk to that hated the moving around so much. And they were like, you're moving away from your family, you're moving away from your friends, don't you find it really hard to to make new friends? And don't you find that, you know, groups are already established and it's really clicky and you you don't like these postings. And I have never found that because every state I moved to with every move that we did with my husband's work, I would find a running group. And from that running group, you would then find your people and then sort of branch off into smaller groups and, It was always the the first part of my planning I would do when I worked out where we were moving was go on to Facebook or whatnot and find out where the local run groups were and just start randomly messaging people. um So, yeah, it definitely definitely brings a bit of joy to what you're doing for sure. Yeah. It's why I guess I went on ah already about missing the social side of it, but I think that it's, it's so, it's so easy for for me when I'm trying to get everything out of myself as a runner to think that the best way to do that is to do exactly what's on my training program and to do the exact long run that's going to replicate the course. And I can work on this thing and be in the right place. And
01:38:48
Speaker
it's like it's just not true like if you're somebody that that draws energy from from social running and and they're 100% not like I coach people that love running by themselves like that is their outlet it's their time for themselves to clear their head and that if that if that's you amazing like you disregard this conversation entirely because that's great but if you are someone like Jess SJ and myself that do draw energy from running with people that it makes it easier to get out the door because you know you got to meet somebody at 5 45 in the middle of winter in the rain or you're going to go on a cool adventure with somebody and you've got someone else that you can say oh remember when I saw this thing rather than just talking to yourself all the time um I I I think that you're much better off deviating to run with somebody than you are from just being like anally stuck to a plan
01:39:34
Speaker
I'm going to take that as a green light for when I'm running with someone and what they're doing is way more fun than what I'm supposed to do. I'm going to be like, yeah. I was about to like caveat that a little bit. I've got to deviate towards the fun.
01:39:49
Speaker
like like I was going to caveat that with like within reason. if If you're doing two hours and a friend's doing six hours and you haven't done anything over two hours for a long time and it's in the mountains, like maybe play a bit smart. Or if your coach is giving you a threshold style session and your best friend doing a 3k 1500 style session at the track, like at least ask your coach first to say like, Hey, can like, is this an issue or not? Uh,
01:40:13
Speaker
That part never happened. We can edit that part out. No, no, no, no but it's right. So especially, like, especially if you work with a coach, like some of the things people don't like about being on a program is it's so structured and you you are accountable to somebody which is epic in some senses, but it's a real pain in the ass in another sense. And so you don't have that freedom and that flexibility. And so it is important that you can go to your coach and be like, hey, my friend's doing this. I really want to go run with them.
01:40:38
Speaker
can I do it and if if your coach keeps saying no I would tell you to question them and say I really want to run with my friends and then if not then find another coach but like it's it's the the the I think was it was like the the number one marker for longevity is social connection and so if we're cutting that out of our training inevitably you're going to get fed up of it and if you lose the fun you lose the joy you lose the purpose you lose the drive you lose any chance of performance you're ever going to get Yeah.
01:41:04
Speaker
um I think it draws into the consistency and like consistency in our sport far outweighs doing like a specific session that you think is going to like give you more benefit to what your friends are doing. um Most of the time, like as long as you're working similar energy systems, like you're going to get a similar benefit.
01:41:28
Speaker
And if you're going to enjoy it more because you're doing it with people, like that's, it's going to, far outweigh um yeah any differences in the sessions. Definitely. Absolutely, where all of my best bad ideas come from.
Upcoming Week Plans
01:41:43
Speaker
that' it This is going to cause so many downstream issues. Cool. So say i think that was everything we had for the show. i' Just going into what's coming up next week. So we've got Mikey Demiwantus running the Hong Kong 100.
01:42:04
Speaker
So that's going to be super exciting. um ma He's looking super fit. I've seen some of his sessions that he's posted um doing four reps of bluff knoll in the Sterling Ranges in Western Australia, which is pretty crazy. um I've done that once and it killed me. It's it's a super gnarly exercise.
01:42:24
Speaker
climb It's like you gain like 900 metres in 3K or something. It's pretty crazy. So to do that four times, he must be doing pretty well. So good luck to him.
01:42:35
Speaker
Yeah, I'm very excited. Like, I'm sorry, Jess, we've been following his Strava and just seeing the consistency of his work and how it's been building. And like, obviously, you never know exactly what's going to happen on the day, but damn, he's fit right now.
01:42:48
Speaker
um yeah So hope hopefully, Mikey, you get a chance to show that. But regardless, like you're in a very good place for whatever's coming up after this. He's got that dad's strength. Yeah.
01:42:59
Speaker
More to run for now. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. um And what do you have coming up this week, um I'm going camping.
01:43:10
Speaker
um I might have mentioned. ah No, I didn't mention that. I'm going camping this weekend with some with some friends. So um I'm not sure what my long run will look like. Where are you going? um To be decided. We were supposed to head up middle way, but we just wanted to, yeah, check with the weather and the the fires and everything. that that Well, I'm pretty sure that's all going.
01:43:36
Speaker
I'm pretty sure where we were going will still be okay to go. But, um yeah, when we were planning it, we weren't 100% sure. But, um yeah, somewhere near the near the river um for the last ditch effort of spending some quality ah family time before I head back to work next week. So, um yeah, it's been ah it's been a long time coming. It's been a long a long lot of summer holidays. But, yeah, last last little stint away, which will be really nice. So I might... um yeah get my i guess key sessions done um yeah on friday or this week before i go or i'll i'll enjoy the social aspect of things and do what my family is doing for their training which is nothing
01:44:23
Speaker
i'll join in with them i would just like to point out to the listeners that sj does have a plan they get stuff done beforehand and we've already edited it she's not just completely freewheeling it as she's making it sound right now i'm very compliant I'm very compliant.
01:44:37
Speaker
so Oh, amazing. Yeah, enjoy. Yeah, i oh I'm heading to Bright actually. awesome.
Final Thoughts and Farewell
01:44:45
Speaker
So I'm heading heading there on Thursday and staying till Monday.
01:44:48
Speaker
so yeah, that should be fun. you be Are you doing workshops or? um i'm staying with a few trial runners so maddie o'donnell tom driscoll billy o'mealy um and some other guys um and yeah we're just going to run and do our training together and i'm going to check out some of the 20k course so yeah what about you james what have you got coming up Um, just normal stuff this week working. Um, I'm actually going back to the UK on Monday, um, for a few weeks. So it should be nice ah kind of ah a trip. My parents and Siobhan got for me for my 30th, which is in February. So
01:45:31
Speaker
just trying to get get ready for that um but yeah nothing nothing particularly different on because of that this week so yeah just normal normal stuff which is exciting I like I like I like routine and I like my work so I i like my weeks yeah amazing um well thanks guys um such an awesome chat we've been going for almost two hours so hopefully the listeners enjoyed that one um but yeah thanks for listening Yeah, thanks for coming on SJ. Great to chat. Yeah, thanks very much for having me guys. Awesome to, um yeah, awesome to chat to you, um Jess, and have fun in bright. And yeah, have a good weekend, James.
01:46:12
Speaker
I'll check in with you later. Sounds good. I'll see you guys. Thanks guys. Bye.