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Episode 55: Catch Up with Billy Curtis, wild UTA course recces and the racing season heats up!
316 Plays6 days ago
Welcome to Episode 55 of Peak Pursuits, your ultimate podcast for everything trail running in Australia. In this episode Jess Jason and Brodie Nankervis are joined by Billy Curtis to catch up on his adventures in Asia, including a win at the Korean Golden Trail National Series on the weekend!
Hear about Billy’s experiences of living in Japan and racing both in Japan and across Asia, Brodie’s orienteering races over Easter and Jess’s training between Buffalo Stampede and UTA, including a hectic course recce in the Blue Mountains last weekend.
We dive into the results from this week, including some aussies racing overseas in Malaysia and the USA, trail runners running some speedy road times and a very fast race in Brisbane with some people to watch for UTA!
Lastly we preview the big week of racing coming up, including Ueda Skyrace in Japan, and some fun trail races happening across the country!
***Don’t forget, use code PPP 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!
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter
License code: K08PMQ3RATCE215R
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to episode 55 of the Peak Pursuits podcast. I'm Jess Jason and tonight I'm joined by Nankervis. How you going?
00:00:20
Speaker
Yeah, pretty good Jess. Pretty good. Excited for tonight. Yeah, me too, because we've got a pretty special guest on, um the one and only Billy Curtis, ah who is currently based over in Japan, and he's been there for a few months, but um heading back to Australia soon. So how are you going, Billy? Hey, thank you for having me on again.
00:00:44
Speaker
and yeah, I've been based in Japan for the past six months, and I'm in Seoul, ready to fly back to Australia to race UTA. Sounds good. We're excited to have you back on Australian soil. um And you've had some awesome results over in Asia. So it's been really cool to follow your journey over there. And I love like all the little bits that you share on social media, like the different foods that you're finding, like the different supplements, it's so good.
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's very interesting when you go into a different culture and you're trying to be like an elite athlete. So you're trying to look for, oh what does everyone in this country do for their nutrition and how do they optimize their own like lifestyle to be an athlete? So trying to follow that in Japan is very interesting.
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah,
Korea 50K Race Experience
00:01:27
Speaker
cool. um I reckon we jump into training weeks and we'll start with you, Billy, um because you had a race on the weekend, the which is part of the Seoul 50 or the Korea 50? Yeah, so it's the Korea 50K and they also host the Golden Trail National Series. So they have a 25K for the Golden Trail National Series.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah. So how much vert was in that course? Yeah. I think there's 12 to 1300 meters of vert, but my watch got one thing. And then when I adjusted on Strava, which is usually more accurate, it gave me like crazy, crazy elevation and gap paces. So it was around 1250, I would say. Yeah. Was that out at the Bukhansan National Park?
00:02:13
Speaker
I wish. No, it was it was out in Donggikion. I wish it was there because it's super technical out in Vatinal Park. But no, we went out to a little town further out. Yeah.
00:02:27
Speaker
Nice. Yeah, tell us about your week leading up and um race recap. Yeah, so the week leading up was just packing to move back to Australia for a couple of months.
00:02:38
Speaker
So it was a fair bit and training in the morning and then packing all day and cleaning the house. you live in a pretty big share house. You've got to do all the, as you move out of a house, you've got to clean so much stuff and pack everything.
00:02:51
Speaker
So it was, I can't actually really remember what I did for training. It was just going out for a lot of easy runs and not really worrying too much about doing anything special or specific. Just keep a normal training week and clean everything up and get packed up. And ah traveled to Korea vacation the thursday and then just got out for a lot of easy runs before the race and just kept everything pretty normal and then raced on saturday morning which i love that because then you can rest on sunday and continue on with normal on monday yeah nice that's cool and um the race looks like it was like a bit undulating but there was like one big climb in sort of the about halfway through nearly or sort of just after halfway
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I was hoping racing in Korea and looking at all the races here, most of them are quite technical and very rocky, like the Uldu Nine Peaks race that you did, Brodie, yeah and the Asia-Pacific race.
00:03:44
Speaker
But this one was more of ah a typical Asian countryside race. So racing through like little farms and like little villages, and then you'll have one climb, which is like the local mountain of the area.
00:03:57
Speaker
And that's sort of what it was. So you'd run around these undulating little country roads and um like through farms and then we sort of just hit a climb that i think went up about 500 meters And it was wasn't steep running up, but it was quite steep coming back down.
00:04:14
Speaker
And then, yeah, a lot of stairs too. Like all the little climbs were stairs, like staircases up to little temples. So it was quite, um yeah, stop start for a lot of it. Yeah, nice, nice. And um I saw that you did enough to come away with a win.
00:04:29
Speaker
Was it um like fairly competitive? the The guys who were behind you weren't far behind you and you looked to have sort of run pretty quick. So seems that the depth was fairly decent. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, everyone ran quiet quite fast. I think in the top four or five, there was maybe 10 minutes between everyone.
00:04:46
Speaker
But I think it was everyone stuck together quite early in the race. um They were all the, because it's a golden trail race, they were all the Solomon runners, I think. There was three Solomon male runners, Solomon career guys, and then i think a guy...
Race Dynamics and Media Presence
00:05:01
Speaker
who's sponsored by normal everyone is like sponsored in Korea like all the athletes are like sponsored it's so cool to to see like when we're doing the sorry sorry but when we're doing the ceremonies everyone's like sponsored and has their full kit on it's pretty cool but yeah we all stuck together and then I went off ahead at like 5k and went got directed off the course by a police officer for like 500 meters or so and I I must have lost, I did lost lose the lead, um but I didn't sort of realize that I did. So then just sort of jumped back on the tail of the other guys because they're all wearing Solomon's kit. So I didn't really know who was who. So I thought I was just behind the sort of leader.
00:05:39
Speaker
um And then, yeah, as we got to like an open fire road section, I could see like 500 meters ahead. One of the other guys was ahead. So I was like, oh, I've got to get moving here and then caught up.
00:05:50
Speaker
and then got to push the climb the big climb i got to like run it pretty well similar to sort of gradient to uta so it was good to yeah run on a similar fire road and gradient as uta in the middle of a race and then yeah i was very comfortable towards the back sort of 10 15k of the race so ah wasn't um too stressful at the end of the race and got to finish comfortably so it's good yeah cool nice i saw a picture with a big check and it looks like a lot of money as well when it's in korean one yeah i'm halfway into becoming a millionaire yeah 500 000 yeah which which converts to basically 500 australian dollars so that helps a lot because it covers the cost of being here for the week and it also it's cheaper flights back from seoul so it was kind of a bit of a uh get back to australia in a cheaper way but and also get a short trip to korea because it was
00:06:45
Speaker
about 250 dollars less to fly from seoul because it's super cheap to fly from seoul back to brisbane and then there was a bit of prize money too so it was kind of i might actually end up with like 50 net positive at the end yeah nice that's good and it's good to get that race stimulus in as well um maybe not like it as not an a race but it's sort of like nice to sort of test yourself a little bit and put some of the training to work yeah definitely that was one of the the main reasons and then the other main reason was other than financially was also to experience the golden trail in Korea because they've been doing it for three years now. So they've sort of swapped around a few different races around the country and tested a few things out. So experiencing how they run their golden trail national series was, was pretty cool because brands in Korea are a big deal. Like Solomon's a huge lifestyle brand here.
00:07:38
Speaker
and they then that comes through the trail running so at the event like the solomon tents were just just everywhere and everyone's wearing solomon kits and there's photographers everywhere there's it's just like a big deal the the whole event was a big deal and especially the like the 25k was a big deal too which was nice to see because it's often just the longer race that's the the more important one. But this one, is the 25K was definitely the ah showcase race, yeah.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, cool. The lifestyle comment, someone asked me today if Solomon made running shoes. um And I thought that was quite funny because I was like, I'm pretty sure Solomon started in maybe hiking and snowboarding, but trail running was a big deal for most of its brand and now it's ah and it's a pretty heavy lifestyle brand in certain areas, especially in Melbourne.
00:08:30
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah but in Seoul like in Seoul the outdoor what is it called Gorpcore or something say it like yeah yeah but yeah in so everyone is wearing all the big outdoor brands yeah And then all like a lot of like smaller exclusive ones too.
00:08:51
Speaker
So it's really, like seeing it. I think it's cool to see, even though sometimes the money doesn't funnel back into the trail running, but so it's cool. Yeah. It's cool to sort of be in ah an event that's sort of like hyped up a little bit because it sort of increases the nerves probably a little bit and it makes you feel like you're sort of racing sort of for something.
00:09:09
Speaker
yeahre Yeah. Training race. Yeah, and another thing, before the race, I got to go on national television because it's a ah big event. um Yeah, I got pulled aside, so I wanted to do a long warm-up to get more like 35K running in for the morning.
00:09:22
Speaker
But I got like my hand held, like literally held for like 20 minutes straight, and I could not leave because I had to do an interview. I didn't quite get a long enough warm-up in that I wanted, but it was cool to be, yeah, interviewed by a film crew. So I'm hoping to find the...
Challenges of Being a Vegetarian Athlete in Korea
00:09:39
Speaker
the interview somewhere I don't know what I said so famous korean yeah I wish be cool and how have you gone with like um all the food over there like um do you find you get enough for like your sort of carb loads and stuff leading into races yeah yeah in Korea it's a little bit more difficult um just because i'm not fully aware of like the grocery store and convenience store situation here in japan you can live off convenience stores it's amazing like you can get so much good food from convenience stores and grocery stores are a little bit easier to manage and i got used to it whilst being there as well and the food in japan is just so so healthy so that was all quite easy but yeah the carb load into this race i didn't do like a
00:10:29
Speaker
Full massive carb load, but just basically get a heap of microwave rice packs here. Are you vegetarian? Well, I have been this time in Korea, actually, yeah. ah Yeah, fair enough.
00:10:42
Speaker
There is a really good supermarket in the main Seoul train station, but it's about the only good supermarket I think I found in Korea. There was one sort of near Ujoo, but yeah, the one in the the train station is fairly decent.
Upcoming Races and Career Goals
00:10:54
Speaker
Oh, cool. I'm right next to that, so maybe I should go in like
00:10:59
Speaker
um And you're coming back to Australia for UTA 50. Is that like a big key race for you this year? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I've never treated the UTA as like the big race of the year, but I've always wanted to be there each year because it is it is still always the big race and the big event of the year. But now it's a it's a major and...
00:11:21
Speaker
There's a lot more incentives this year and also long-term as well. So even if I don't have a great race this year, and but I still perform okay, then there's opportunities next year to come back and year after year after because there's good prize money.
00:11:35
Speaker
There's good exposure for brands um and good UTMB points, ITRA points, all those sort of things that you sort of got to look at a little bit more carefully and when you're trying to pursue the trail running a little bit. Yeah. um and what about for the rest of the year? Like do you have any goals, goal races that you're aiming towards? um Yeah, but more of the same of what I've been doing this year, not going into any of the – like bigger series events.
00:12:03
Speaker
I would obviously love to go to the world champs in Spain, but there's a lot like financially, there's a lot to think about there. So I'll have to think about that over the next few months and also generally going over to Europe 2 race.
00:12:16
Speaker
But yeah, i'd have to think about that a lot. But the the few races that I've picked from my own interest and motivations and where I'll be would be to go to the All Due 2 Peak Sky Race that Brodie did last year and went really well at.
00:12:29
Speaker
that looks like an awesome race, very similar to the race I did in Japan this year. very similar to the race i did in japan this year um and also i'd like to do the golden trail series in japan too it's really strong really competitive racing and similar courses like 30k with like two and a half thousand meters of vert and yeah like the fields are always like one or two minutes apart for the top 10 those two and then at the end of the year it'd be great to go to a race like chiang mai to do another major but i the heat and humidity and jungles are just
00:13:05
Speaker
and scare me a lot, so I don't know how I'd do there, to be honest. Like, I'd love to do well there, but yeah ah realistically, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to go there and have high expectations, perform well generally, I think, very hard.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like you'd be well – if you're based in Asia, you'd be well positioned to, like, get acclimatised and all that stuff, so – yeah but exciting year like you've got a lot um on the table so that's it's cool that you like you're in asia and you're so close to all those um big races and you can like jump in between countries like that's really cool yeah i think the jumping between countries is just the same as jumping between states in australia yeah which is so nice That's so cool.
00:13:52
Speaker
um Cool. So, Brodie, what have you been up to? I feel like um we haven't heard from you for a couple of weeks and keen to hear the Achilles update and the running update and how you've been going.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah, I've been busy-ish but just, yeah, haven't been able to jump on. But, um yet yeah, I don't even know where to start, to be honest. I raced it. ah We had a...
00:14:18
Speaker
big ah Easter three-day competition for orienteering like last weekend over Easter. um And that's a part of our National Orienteering League um and was the sort of final selection tra trials for world champs for orienteering that are in Finland in July.
Brodie's Orienteering and Injury Journey
00:14:39
Speaker
So I still sort of have my closed on that team to some extent. um I was still wanting to sort of get in that team. So i the the the few weeks leading into that, I'd been sort of focusing on trying to get some more running outside um and doing a bit of orienteering so I could try and prepare my Achilles a little bit because it seems to be um the unevenness of the terrain in orienteering seems to be like quite a big aggravator compared to sort of just running straight line on a on a treadmill or outside just on a path um so yeah I did a little bit in the lead up I thought I was well prepared um I thought it would go okay but then I and sort of raced the there was like a ah first a prologue race that didn't really count too much and I sort of went out just to sort of
00:15:27
Speaker
give it a little bit of a stimulus so that it it wasn't completely shocked for the first race day and then it was a bit sore afterwards so that was a bit of a shame and I sort of threw my confidence a little bit in it and and then it was a bit of a Interesting weekend, but I managed to get through two of the three races.
00:15:46
Speaker
um And yeah, i was fairly limited. Well, it felt like I was fairly limited by looking at it, looking at the ah races afterwards. It actually didn't appear to be too bad. But during the races, I felt like I could go like maximum.
00:16:01
Speaker
sort of 80% to 90% of effort um just because I was having sort of symptoms throughout both races. um And they were sort of like minimum minimal enough that I could push through them, but it was just like I wasn't getting the full amount of power. um And I think like it to move through the terrain, it's it's pretty difficult. So, yeah, just missing that last bit. But, yeah, like overall, I sort of got through, um which was sort of good, but I also...
00:16:30
Speaker
said to myself that I didn't want to do any races this year where I had symptoms during so I'm sort of battling that a little bit um and yeah what's the plan so you've got a pretty good support team in Melbourne like Lockie and yeah um is anyone sort of helping you with that like guiding you how much running you should be doing and stuff like that Yeah, like Lockie was working. I've been working very closely with Lockie, both on the rehab program and the running.
00:16:58
Speaker
um And it seemed to be going fairly well in the lead up. But I think it's just like it's after the three months off running. It's not it's not getting it's not because I took three months off and I probably I did need it.
00:17:10
Speaker
But because I took three months off, it's taking a long time for the Achilles to adjust to taking the running load again. Like what I can do in the gym is so much better than what I could do this time last year. But my running is a lot worse than what it was this time last year, um which is really interesting. And for me, i'm I'm struggling to deal with that to some extent because I'm like, I'm doing the right things.
00:17:29
Speaker
My rehab's going well, but my running is in a worse place. And Both me and Lockie thought that I would progress a lot faster. Like back in February when I started running, Lockie was pretty confident that I would be able to finish UTA 50.
00:17:43
Speaker
And I definitely had to pull the pin on that because I'm i'm not wanting to... wanting to do a race where I have symptoms for three hours. That's not something I'm willing to do. The orienteering races were sort of like 90 minutes and didn't completely destroy me. Like I pulled up all right on last week, um but I'm not willing to sort of do it for a really long trail race. So, yeah, I think we both thought it would progress further and it's difficult that it is progressing slowly. And yeah and because it's progressing slowly, it's sort of like my brain's thinking, is it actually going to progress?
00:18:16
Speaker
Like that's the start of thoughts that I start to have, which is yeah quite tough. But um yeah, I don't know. it's it's It's so up and down. And that's the thing. It's it's become less predictable the longer that I've had it.
00:18:30
Speaker
And also it's such a roller coaster. So like last week in the week, um I was really, i was doing some, I organized an orienteering event on Saturday and I was quite stressed and I was at work last week as well and lots of life stresses going on and then my Achilles wasn't doing well.
00:18:50
Speaker
It sort of had a few days where I was on my feet for a really long time and it got quite in it felt like it got quite inflamed um over like Friday, Saturday. And I got really down because I was like, it sort of got it was bad on Monday, but then by Wednesday it was OK.
00:19:06
Speaker
And then Thursday it was OK. And then Friday, Saturday it got bad again. And I was like, oh, what's going on? Like, this is crazy. And I think it was just all the stress and everything. But like, it's such a rollercoaster. And then Sunday, yesterday,
00:19:17
Speaker
I went out for a I went, okay, well, I'm just going to go out for a run, see how I go. And I did 90 minutes with like very minimal symptoms. So it's like, it's such a roller coaster. It feels good today.
00:19:30
Speaker
um i think it's coming, but it's it's so hard to know what what impacts it. And there's lots of little things that impact it on a daily basis. So there's a lot of, adjustment like I'd love to just have a training plan where I'm like okay Monday I'm going to do a cycle Tuesday I'm going to do this Wednesday I'll do this and I can plan that ahead of time but like for the last six probably 18 months I've been super reactive with my training which is like I think really starting to grate on me a bit and I'm I'm only just starting to have the feelings and i don't they're not like something I'll act on but I'm starting to have the thoughts of
00:20:06
Speaker
All right, is this it? Am I done? And that's I think I've never had that before. So like it's that's quite confronting as well. And I don't think I'm there, but it's like those thoughts are starting to creep in a bit.
00:20:19
Speaker
um But yeah, it's I think I think we're I think we're still heading in the right direction. It's just really slow. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like like Achilles, you just have to be so patient. like So many people I've heard of same thing, like it just takes so long, but then all of a sudden, like they'll just switch and yeah.
00:20:42
Speaker
And I've had a few people tell me that and I'm just like, that's sort of like this like background hope that like I'll look back in a year and I'll be like, oh, it's like that was crazy that I felt like that last year. Like it's going to be interesting if I ever listen back to these episodes.
00:20:54
Speaker
Some of these episodes where I'm talking about it and I have no symptoms. Hopefully that's the reality. But, yeah, I've got a plan. ah like I'm seeing Lockie again this week and actually like today I'm super positive about it. um So it's just a bit of a roller coaster.
00:21:08
Speaker
And I think I'm still i'm going to book in with a sports doc again. I saw them in December and just get some more information about it. because I said that there is a surgical option, but we didn't really talk too much about it at that stage because I wanted to sort of do as much rehab as I could first.
00:21:22
Speaker
um But I'm thinking I'll book in with the sports doctor just so not not so much to like go, OK, I'm going to have surgery now, but more so get the information like how much is it going to cost? What's like the recovery times like that sort of stuff?
00:21:34
Speaker
um So I have all the information because I feel like at the moment I i don't have that information. So. Yeah, I've got some things that I want to do um And yeah, like it seems to be coming along. And I think I'm going to go see a sports psych as well um just to sort of talk through some of the stuff in terms of like managing it. If it does, I do get the symptoms and or how to prepare for that and in the head because I found that really difficult.
00:22:00
Speaker
in the races at Easter, like between the races, I was like on the Saturday after the first sort of actual race, I was like about to go home. I was like, no, I'm done. I'm going home.
00:22:11
Speaker
And then the next day I ran for 90 minutes and it was like I got through. It wasn't great, but I got through. So it's just the mental the mental side is really tough as well. So I think I might, yeah, book in and try and work through that because I've been reading some stuff with like Steve Magnus, some of the stuff he posts, and I listened to – Actually, there was an amazing collab podcast episode, if anyone wants to listen to it, with the Coffee Club podcast and some work or play.
00:22:36
Speaker
um They did a podcast together and it was the greatest thing I've ever listened to. So you should listen to that. But Morgan McDonough was talking about how he was once injured coming into, I think it was Commonwealth Games, and he had a sports psych that he was working with.
00:22:53
Speaker
And not only did they work through like the obvious of like, okay, well, there's a good reality that you'll have symptoms during the week, but you'll still you want to be at the Commonwealth Games, so...
00:23:04
Speaker
those symptoms like that could be just part of it. But the really interesting thing that i that that he was talking about that sort of opened my eyes is the other thing is if you have symptoms, you're going to have ah you're going to have a mental reaction to that and you're going to be super stressed and you're going to be you're going to be down and you're going to not want know what to do So if you if you expect that that's going to happen and you're happy and you accept that you that will happen or that there's an opportunity that happened and you're okay with that,
00:23:33
Speaker
then you can still go to those champs. But if you're not, then you then you need to sort of work through that. And it so it's i think that was really powerful for to me because I was sort of reflecting on the Easter races and going, well, if I'd known that I was going to have that mental reaction, I think it would have been a lot easier to manage it.
00:23:50
Speaker
Like I would have been like, okay, I'm expecting this. This is here. And now I just need to sort of rationally work through it rather than I had sort of an emotional response to an emotional response. So it was a bit, it sort of snowballed a bit.
00:24:04
Speaker
um So yeah, that's lots of things I'm thinking about. I've just done a brain dump on everyone. okay I think I've learned a lot. And like, to be honest, I still feel so fit.
00:24:15
Speaker
Like it's crazy. I still feel fit. ah if i was good If I was not, if i if I was confident that I could run UTA 50 with no symptoms, I would do it.
00:24:26
Speaker
And I don't think I would I don't think I would be in the top five and I'd i'd probably I wouldn't do what I want to do at UTA 50 in years to come, but I would have a decent race because I think I'm actually relatively fit. I think maybe the the four or five hours would start to get tough because I haven't done that much running, but my aerobic fitness feels good. Like ah the orienteering races.
00:24:48
Speaker
Like I said, I felt like I was going 80 to 90 percent and I was still competitive. So maybe I wasn't going 80, 90 percent. Maybe it was closer to 100 percent, but I still feel like my fitness is quite good. So I think that's a big positive. And I've learned a lot from the bike training and I'm doing some really awesome gym work. So, yeah, there's a lot of positives. It's just very easy to focus in on the negatives.
00:25:09
Speaker
I definitely don't think you're done then, Brody. I think I started off here by saying You might be done, but if you're taking all these steps, then you're definitely not done. And also look at the age of all of the like the top. Yeah, I know.
00:25:23
Speaker
It's crazy. It's got up and up and up all the time. Definitely. not like like as i said i'm I'm definitely not. I'm definitely not saying I'm done. It's just like it's the first time. And it was when I was having a really bad day that the thoughts crept in. But it was just like interesting for me to note that that was sort of like the first time that thought had sort of existed in my brain.
00:25:43
Speaker
Well, that sounds really tough, but I'm sure you'll get through it. Yeah, and I like, look, everyone, I'm sure there's lots of people probably listening to this have had similar injuries. And we've all had, I think most people have had injuries. But like, yeah, I just, it's so interesting now going, oh, well, I could have done so many things different in my life. So I think, yeah, my one piece of advice was don't get injured ah to anyone because that's the best start.
00:26:07
Speaker
Like you can train 20% less than you think you should ah for 10 years and you'll be in a better position than if you get injured. So um yeah and get a coach probably someone who can sort of make sure you keep yourself honest because we I think we have a tendency to push ourselves so yeah yeah yeah that actually kind of um reflects my training at the moment a little bit just um yeah like this sort of period in between Buffalo and UTA 50 I feel like
00:26:40
Speaker
I've just been like kind of maintaining. I don't really feel like I'm training for a 50K, which has actually been nice, like just two and a half hour long runs, um some shorter sessions, just like topping up the system. um But yeah, it is like it's hard to like because I feel like I've been going back into my head a little bit and being like, it's like I'm doing a 50K race and I haven't run further than like twenty five ka in like six weeks sort of thing. So it like it does get into your head a bit, but I think um making sure that like because given I got sick after Buffalo and all that just making sure that like my energy is like topped up um in between the two races is like going to benefit me way more than trying to squeeze in some longer runs um to like make me feel a bit more confident um I think like the training that I did before Buffalo was super solid like I got in um quite a few like three and a half hour long runs and
00:27:38
Speaker
Obviously, like the race itself at Buffalo, it's all in my system still. So bank that fitness and, um yeah, get to the start line healthy and hopefully have a good day. Yeah, it really wasn't that long ago that you got a massive stimulus from Buffalo. Yeah.
00:27:57
Speaker
yeah it It points out a good point. We're always trying to overreach. like and But number one priority is healthy body. Yeah. Yeah, it was – yeah, like so yesterday I was up in the Blue Mountains doing um my last sort of course recce.
00:28:12
Speaker
I did um the last part of the course the week before, um which was really nice. The weather was beautiful. um It's like – yeah the course really suits me it's a lot of running um it's the 22k course so it's sort of like a fire road for most of it and then um you finish on like a little bit of a single trail and some stairs but it's pretty beautiful like I don't know I just love the blueys I feel like there's something special about them um but yeah so did the first half of the course yesterday which I feel like is just totally different running like it's
00:28:48
Speaker
super slow um stairs and like just up and down pretty much the whole time. um It was like torrential rain no from like the night before. So it was borderline like unsafe to be sort of running out there like some of the um waterfalls and stuff had turned into like pretty hectic rapids.
00:29:08
Speaker
um So was just extra slow going. And ran like 22K in like two and a half hours. didn't even know what my gap, my move, like whatever, what's it called? Like the moving time, non-moving time.
00:29:24
Speaker
probably like four hours because I was just like getting lost the whole time. So it was just one of those long runs where you're like, oh, like you just feel like it was just a bit of a mess, but a bit of an adventure. um Yeah, I feel like it was not what I was expecting from my last sort of big long run before the race. But I think like seeing the course was beneficial um and being prepared for the worst sort of conditions that you can get up there. um hopefully Hopefully, I'm ready, ready to go.
00:29:56
Speaker
what are the What is that part of the course like? like What are the staircases like there? Because I don't know at all what what the stairs are like. Are they the the metal stairs with the handrails on them, like just pieces of those? Or are they like the natural staircases?
00:30:11
Speaker
um No, it's not really any natural ones. Like they're all sort of man-made, but it's kind of like a mix of different man-made stairs. um So like there's a little bit of the metal ones. um So like I think the biggest drop is in the first part of the course is the giant staircase, um which is like – yeah probably the most kind of sketchy technical part of the race, I think. So there's like sections of that where it's like very small little steps. So like people with big feet will really struggle, I think.
00:30:44
Speaker
um And it's super steep, um but it doesn't go for too long. And then um the rest of it is kind of like runnable stairs. Like I was running most of the stairs, they don't go for too long. And I think after doing Hounslow, like it just doesn't really compare in terms of like just difficulty. Yeah, but the vertical gain in Hounslow is a lot more, I think, per kilometre than UTA.
00:31:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you still want to be like kind of conservative though in that first half, like because if you do try and like gas all of the little climbs, like your legs will get pretty tired.
00:31:19
Speaker
oh Yeah. but So is Giant Staircase, I should know this, but Brodie, did we do that in 2023? Is that part of the 2023 course? but theyre I think Giant Staircase is like, that's where the Three Sisters is, isn't it? Is that right, Jess?
00:31:35
Speaker
Like near the Three Sisters? I think so. so does yeah we come we come up Ferber at the end and then we go down Giant at the start.
00:31:46
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so it's we ran past the bottom of it, um Billy. when we So when we were down the bottom, we ran past the bottom of Ferber and then you sort of go around the gully and the next sort of spur, um there's a track going up and that goes up to Ferber. But we came up further around it, Laura. I assume you might go up.
00:32:06
Speaker
Do you go up, Laura, then if you go down Giant Staircase, Jess? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and that's it. So you would have maybe done that climb, Billy, the one that we did in UTA 20.
00:32:18
Speaker
Okay. So is the staircase one where you can slide on your hands? like Like they've got the railings on the side and you can sort Yeah. don't recommend doing this, but I'm just going to be quite crazy. A giant staircase is like one of the steepest ones. It's pretty steep. Yeah. I wouldn't recommend if it's raining. Yeah. It's a bit faster when it's a bit wet on there. Yeah.
00:32:45
Speaker
I do like that about the Blue Mountains staircases, though. Like, I remember the one in Laura, like, you use the rails on both sides. It's like using poles to come up. Yeah, that's where you passed me that time, Brody. And was like, oh, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, it's great. ah ski I think you could actually train for some parts of UTA or, like, especially in the shorter races where you want to fly up those climbs by doing some of that stair climbing and, like, practicing using the rails.
00:33:10
Speaker
Ah, you're like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. puing Yeah, it's cool. Jess, the weather looked pretty crazy. I saw that there was like a few people, other people out on the trail like Kelly Angel had to abort her race and her recce and whatnot.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, me and Kelly were having a laugh after because we were like, oh, my God, that's just crazy. She was in a different spot because she's doing the miler, so she was doing like the Hanzo course recce. Yep.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, which I think she aborted it because the river at the bottom of Perry's look down was just like overflowing and you couldn't cross it. Like it was too dangerous. Yeah, that would be sketchy.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah. um So yeah, it was a bit of a crazy weekend. I feel like there was so many people out there doing course recce, which is cool, but it was just like a bit of a like, oh, like hopefully it's not like this on race day and hopefully it dries up. Otherwise they're going to have to change the course a fair bit.
00:34:10
Speaker
Yeah, like I think if it was like that race day, they wouldn't be able run it. They'd have no i don't i'd have to yeah change a lot of parts because like it would be like one person going carefully and yeah sort of risking making that making that decision themselves is different to doing it on race day with like thousands of people. So, yeah, hopefully weather's nothing like that.
00:34:30
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think they'd be able to do it if it was. um Because, yeah, it was like literally, like because there's some sections where you're kind of like walking through a waterfall on like steps that are usually above the water, but steps were like below the water.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah. so You don't want to slip down those ones.
00:34:50
Speaker
Have they said there's any damage from the rain on the weekend? Or they said it's all good? I haven't seen any news. Fingers crossed not. Hopefully it was just like a lot of, I think most of the issues in the past have been landslide type stuff rather than sort of lots of water.
00:35:07
Speaker
But I guess lots of water can cause that sort of stuff. But I didn't see anything. Yeah. Hopefully not. Fingers crossed. Not far away. And it'd be a shame to, yeah I know there's so many people gearing up and it's going to be such an epic weekend. I'm i'm coming up still. So I'm so excited to sort of watch it all unfold. It's going to be awesome.
00:35:24
Speaker
Yeah, it should be a fun weekend. Like there'll be heaps of people there. It'll be a vibe. Yeah, nice. um Before we – oh, sorry, Jess, did you – was that – did we do we recap your training week there? We recapped your training in general. Was anything else that you've been sort of focusing on in in training like in the last few weeks?
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah. Not really. Like it's been – I've only done three sessions, a couple of tempos and track session. I'll do a couple more this week and then start kind of tapering.
00:35:56
Speaker
But, yeah, I feel like I'm really just kind of topping out what I was doing before, like not doing as much as what I was doing before, like less volume but um kind of similar stimulus. So just I guess like reminding the body of – what I had done before and um just making sure that I'm like continually like not like I'm sort of getting out of that hole that I was in but after Buffalo. So just like yeah staying healthy, staying happy.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah. So Jess, after being up there for the weekend, um have you personally thought about anything like race tactics or how to run the courses like the most efficiently you you can run it?
00:36:39
Speaker
Like, have you thought about those things and you'll reflect on that for the next few weeks? Yeah, I think so. um For me, i think it'll be like, I'll be pretty conservative. Like I'm usually pretty conservative first half of the race. So I think I'll probably aim to like, just kind of conserve on the first half of the course. Cause I don't think it kind of suits me as much as the second half anyway. Like I'll probably just save the legs a little bit for the second half and then I mean, the second half starts with like a very long downhill as well. So I will assess how I'm feeling before that. But if I'm feeling good, like I'll probably just like try and send it a little bit down there. And then there's a couple of like little pinchy climbs that I'm sure will feel pretty nasty at that stage of the race. um
00:37:27
Speaker
And then I think... leave it all out there for the last staircase just whatever you have left um i feel like everyone's going to be feeling shocking by the time they get to that last kind of k upstairs so it's one of the coolest finishes to a ah race i reckon like just absolutely yeah so tough um oh i love an uphill finish like it's so it excites me a lot more than a downhill finish that's for sure Even in the 20K when me and Billy did it 23, you don't you do only do like a third, if that, maybe like a quarter of Ferber, but it was still felt so tough. Like yeah you come around the top and you go up and it was like, it was like oh, my God, like how close is Billy and Max behind me? Like am I going to get past on these stairs?
00:38:13
Speaker
And because you go so slow, you could look up and see someone, but yeah you're actually still a long way behind because it takes so long to to get from there up to where you're looking. Yeah, it's crazy.
00:38:24
Speaker
That's cool. Nice. um And Jess, like yeah this race, like ah like Billy said that this is sort of sort of working towards an A
Race Priorities and Reflections
00:38:32
Speaker
race for him. Like for you, was UTA more important than Buffalo? Was Buffalo more important? Are they the same? Like how were you sort of approaching the season around these two big races?
00:38:42
Speaker
I think – In my head, Buffalo was more important and I think that was because I wanted like my big goal for the year is to go to world champs and that was like within the qualifying period.
00:38:54
Speaker
Definitely. But like I wanted to do UTA. i just hadn't – I think Buffalo was just like so such a focus for so long that I wasn't really like – thinking about UTA as much but um it's still like something that I really want to do because I haven't like um done it before and it's a really cool opportunity with like the top 10 getting a spot to OCC for next year and stuff like that which is exciting.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good year to do UTA because next year is like an off year for world champs. So it's ah it's a good year to sort of try and go to the UTMB finals. So yeah, it's ah it's definitely, i think it I think that'll make it a super competitive year as well. So it's it's bound to be pretty fun.
00:39:36
Speaker
But yeah, sounds good. Nice. Yeah. um before we move on to we're going to go through some results there's lot happened over the weekend Billy I just wanted to um ask you a couple questions because I have so many questions about your time in Japan but um I'll keep it to a few um you did a you did a bit of racing um what was your favorite race that you did in in those um few months that you're in Japan Oh, by far Hasatsune 30km, which is Japan's national championship race. So their selection race for the short for world champs and then also just their sort of national short course race.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, and that was like that was pretty competitive. like That was won by Ueda and the other big guns were sort of second and third and fourth probably. But like how was it being racing against those guys? Yeah.
00:40:25
Speaker
Oh, it was so cool. I got stuck because Japanese racing, everyone in the top 50 goes out so far. So I got stuck pretty far behind and then actually fell over in the first 2K and lost all my gels, everything all over the ground. Oh, man. I lost touch with them and within the first few K, I was probably like a few minutes behind already.
00:40:43
Speaker
um And yeah, the the competition is just crazy. Like the... Even to 15th place, you look at their like results around the world. And I think, no, not 15th place, around 10th place, he was ah like multiple people in the top 10 at the Skyrunning World Champs.
00:41:02
Speaker
um Yeah. Many people that have podiumed at the Skyrunning World Series and also the Skyrunning Final in... The end of last year, i think November last year, yeah like in that top 10 sort of area.
00:41:15
Speaker
And then also Japan's has their own national sky running series. So all the people from that sky running series in the top sort of five were racing that too. So yeah, it's just super, super competitive and passing people all throughout the race because it was very steep race in sections.
00:41:30
Speaker
So that was like a lot of people playing to them, um what they're good at basically. Yeah, cool. And where did you place in that race again? What was the place? So I think you said that that wouldn't have put you in the team, but isn't it a team of six for short trail if you were in the Japanese team? I couldn't read the criteria because it's all in Japanese. Okay. But I'm pretty sure it's the top three from that race and then it's discretionary. Then it was out of six. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:41:59
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, like like the past few years that it's been run at one, it's usually one and around 258. So my goal was to run three hours flat. That would have been like over the moon with three hours flat. And I would have thought podium for sure.
00:42:12
Speaker
But yeah, this year, because Rui turned up and just absolutely sent it from the start and did not blow up. Then he ran 252 and then Koken tried to follow and he didn't blow up. And he's having the amazing season this year.
00:42:25
Speaker
He ran 253. And then, for example, last year, I can't remember his name. he's a Solomon guy. He's been going good at the Golden Trail this year. Rano Suki Omi?
00:42:37
Speaker
Yes, yeah. He ran 259 last year at this race. So I ran 302. So to run that was like, I was like, wow, so good. I beat some of his, like,
00:42:50
Speaker
segments on like sections and i was like oh my god and so yes the best race i've had basically and yeah that's how so far so you reckon that's your best sort of performance you've ever had in a race as well yeah definitely and also no course reiki no idea what was happening it was a yeah bit of a navigation course there's no aid station so you care everything you don't see anyone super technical in sections super steep in sections but yeah that definitely yeah definitely my best best race without the um like without like the a label next to it and the specific um training yeah yeah that sounds pretty wild um and yeah living in japan what's the the one thing that you learned like the most important takeaway for like what would you tell someone if they were going to live in japan what's the number one thing they need to know oh to live there or to like train there and race there well like live for ah like what you did live there
00:43:45
Speaker
It just be open minded and calm and relaxed and you'll kind of fit in with everything else that's going on.
Living in Japan and Sky Running Insights
00:43:51
Speaker
And um people think that Japan is very organized and very um like stress free because as a traveler, it's all set up like a when you're traveling through. But to do things like rent a house and open a bank account and get a phone numbers, and all these things are very, very, very difficult.
00:44:06
Speaker
um very difficult to do. but just stay calm in the process of doing all that. Yeah. But it's so worth, it's so easy for a person under 30 to, Do a working holiday in Japan.
00:44:17
Speaker
Very easy to do, very easy to apply for. you just have to stay calm, especially if you're going over without a job to start with. yeah Yeah, definitely. And um ah now you're coming home for UTA and you spend a little bit of time in Australia as well. What's what's after Australia? Are you going back to asia or do you know what you're doing yet?
00:44:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'll go back to Asia asia at the 1st of August, basically. and Okay, cool. Do you know where you're going yet? Um, not a hundred percent. I'll probably move to Kobe. I really like Kobe. It's very close to airports and very cheap to fly around Asia compared to Osaka, which they're both very close to each other. And Kyoto is a bit further away, but Kobe obviously has that golden trail course. So it's tons of vert available right from the door.
00:45:04
Speaker
And then you've got like the bay, Kobe is like a strip of 500 meters wide, which goes to like a 900 meter peak. And then you've got basically like the bay where you can run flat stuff on, And it's very cheap to rent as well. So I'm looking there mainly, I think. Yeah.
00:45:21
Speaker
Yeah. Nice. Cool. Very exciting. Awesome. Do you have any, uh, sorry, I come back around to Billy to ask questions, but did you have any questions for Billy Jess? Um, no, I think I'm all good.
00:45:34
Speaker
Nice one. Cool. All right. Well, I might start with some of the results for this week. So we have like quite a few ah to go through or quite a few that happened. It was a very busy weekend, both overseas and and sort of domestically with some also some road races happening.
00:45:51
Speaker
um But we'll start um in Malaysia. So we had the Calais Penang Sky Race, which is the not the first. I think there's already been a few races in the Sky Running Series, but it was the first race on this side of the world, I guess, over in Asia.
00:46:08
Speaker
um And we had a few, if you listened to last week, you would known we have a few Aussies going across, including the podcast's own Simone Brick. And Simone came second in the women's race.
00:46:20
Speaker
um So she ran really well there um in what looked like an extremely tough 30K race. um The winner in the women was Iris Pesse from France.
00:46:32
Speaker
um who is like a really good sky runner. She sort of featured in the Golden Trail series as well over the years. so She ran 4.48.03. um Simone was second in 4.56.48.
00:46:45
Speaker
And Durlam Suran M was ah third in 5.01.24. I don't know what MNG is. Is that? ah Mongolia.
00:46:57
Speaker
That was two Mongolian athletes. Mongolia. Very cool. Yeah, so a man in the, in the, um, came second as well. Um, yeah, so that was a pretty tough 30K. I saw in Simone's Instagram that she had seven liters of, of fluid over five hours and she felt like she could have had more. So I think it was pretty hot and humid.
00:47:16
Speaker
Um, that's crazy. Yeah. Have you, have you guys ever drank that much in a race? I don't think I've needed to. Or maybe I've needed to happen. I did a race in Malaysia and lost that much, but not 20 kids back.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah, this is so wild. Imagine if Simone hadn't drank seven liters. Like, she probably would have performed. Like, she wouldn't have performed as well. But she would have lost seven. Like, she potentially would have she would have finished the race seven kilos lighter, which is crazy.
00:47:45
Speaker
So she must have lost so much fluid. That's wild. Anyway. Wow. yeah Yeah, I think the races in that part of, like, in Southeast Asia must be, like, so tough to run.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah. um In the men, ah we also had an Australian, Blake Turner, and I think we're going to hear from Blake and Simone this week. I think they're going to do a little um ah little mini episode about their race, and they're both racing next weekend as well.
00:48:11
Speaker
um But in the men, the winner was Marcos Villamura from Spain um running for Scarpa. He ran 3.45.22. Bit of a big win, I think, over the the rest. He's had a 15-minute gap back to...
00:48:27
Speaker
Luvan Sharav N from Mongolia who ran 4 hours 24 and Milton Armat ran 4.03.21 and then Blake was just behind that in fourth. He ran 4.04.20 so he was a minute off third.
00:48:43
Speaker
um So yeah, pretty tough race for someone like Blake who's won UTA 50 and is like a super fast runner hit running 4 hours for a 30k must have been very, very tough.
00:48:55
Speaker
um Yeah. um I will go to the other overseas race. ah So we had, ah so there was plenty of races overseas, but the ones of of interest with Australians running um in, I think every, or not everyone, but ah definitely my eyes, and I'm sure a lot of other people's eyes were on ah Canyon's one hundred k um because we had Mikey Demiante's running um and that ah Canyon's 100K was a golden ticket race, sort of like one
Canyon's 100k and Other Race Highlights
00:49:25
Speaker
of the premier ones. So they have three golden tickets for the men and the women, so one more than some of the other races.
00:49:31
Speaker
um And then it attracted a pretty crazy field um in both the men and the women. um In the men, Francesco Puppi won... with a course record. i can't remember how big the course record was, but it was significant. 14 minutes. And that was, all fourteen I think, It was like 40 minutes. yeah Crazy.
00:49:54
Speaker
I made the double check. Yeah, I think it was. And I don't know whose course record was, but I'm pretty sure Rod Favard ran Canyon's 100K last year. um so it may have been him. I'm not sure.
00:50:04
Speaker
I think that's how he got into Western States. Anyway, he ran in eight hours and four minutes, 36 for 100K. I don't think it's excessively... hilly um and i think the trails are pretty nice but still so fast just crazy um it's so scary i don't think i could run that fast for a 50k let alone 100k so um yeah it's very impressive um second place was hans troia from the usa he ran eight hours 27 so francesco won by like over 20 minutes
00:50:39
Speaker
And third place was Hannes Namburger from Germany who ran eight hours, 32.17. So, like, he beat some, like, big names as well. Hannes is, like, a very big name in in trail running. um So, super impressive. um Mikey came 11th in, I'll just get his time.
00:51:01
Speaker
it might not be showing up. For some reason the second page is not loading for me. ah But he ran, i think it was about nine hours. 13 14 sorry if i'm wrong there mikey um but yeah still like pretty crazy impressive race it was a bunch of the the top 10 who were um just inside nine hours or just over nine hours i think 10th is 908 so like it was he wasn't far off getting into the top 10 and and with some some super fast runners like cody lynn didn't eighth and and rod farvard in ninth running 904 so
00:51:35
Speaker
Yeah, was an impressive run by Mikey. um In the female race, Emily Horgood won in a super fast time as well. She's from, she's running on here. It says she's from Zimbabwe.
00:51:49
Speaker
um she She ran nine hours, 46, 44.
00:51:53
Speaker
um which is, yeah, super fast. um And Marion Hogan from Canada came second in 9 hours 50. And Keely Heineger, I think it is, from the USA came third in 9 hours 58.
00:52:07
Speaker
um So, yeah, some pretty speedy times. And I think the top 10 was all fairly close in that race as well. So, um yeah, cool. That's the 100K. There was other races as well that were also super fast, but we'll just focus on the hundred k because they have Mikey. Yeah.
00:52:24
Speaker
And Jess, I think you're telling us about some Australian races. Yeah, so we also um had a couple of road races actually in Australia that featured some trail runners with some pretty – world-class results so we had ballarat marathon which was quite a big event this year um it's grown a lot since last year um which is really cool it's cool to have like another marathon that has a lot of hype um but we had fraser darcy in the full marathon coming in at second in two hours 18 29 seconds that like
00:53:00
Speaker
and that like Compared to other trail runners, matt like road marathon times, that is up there with the best. So well done to him. That's really, really cool. And hopefully he stays on the trails.
00:53:13
Speaker
Hopefully he doesn't um convert back to a road runner, but um I'm sure he'll stay to the trails because I feel like his It just suits his personality, but we'll see. I would love to see him go to Tarawara 50.
00:53:27
Speaker
it's not It's not in the marath yeah marathoning time of the year. It would suit him so much, and I reckon he could run so fast there because he's got a similar marathon time to someone like Hayden Hawke's.
00:53:39
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, he's moving. And like he beat some like marathon runners that are not like the top top but a sort of the next next best. So Dean Menzies from WA has sort of run really well over the last few years. I think maybe he's like 216, 217 guy and he beat him. And, yeah, it wasn't ah wasn't like a light field. I think when Fraser came second at – Sydney Marathon, it it wasn't a light, light field, but it was probably less competitive than this one. So I think he's, yeah, he's definitely stepped up.
00:54:08
Speaker
um And you could, so I was sort of expecting it. His training's been wild. He's been, he's been training so hard and like the stuff he's been punching out is crazy in my eyes. So yeah, good on him.
00:54:21
Speaker
Yeah, so good. um We also had ah the one and only Kate Avery in the elite mile. um So she did really well and like, I don't she's like 30 something weeks pregnant, which is crazy.
00:54:38
Speaker
um she ran which is moving like I don't know if I'd be able to run that to be honest so yeah i was thinking I was like could I even do a five minute mile at the moment i haven't done much running um so yeah that's super impressive when I spoke to her a few weeks ago um and she was like oh I think it was like three weeks ago she was like if I did it now I think I could do about five minutes but it's literally changing day by day so I think 515 is pretty crazy
00:55:09
Speaker
And it's so cool to see see her in the race as well. like with like She was racing against right some of the best in Australia yeah over the roads. So it was cool that she was sort of there and running.
00:55:20
Speaker
I think she posted that she might have the fastest mild time of anyone in that stage of pregnancy. I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised, yeah. Yeah, yeah, which is pretty that's pretty impressive all around. That's amazing. Yeah.
00:55:39
Speaker
yeah and I think credit to Kate, she's been she's certainly like super focused on sort of doing it doing a sort of running ride and just going by feel and looking after her body and she's still sort of bossing it, which is crazy.
00:55:53
Speaker
yeah geez i'm yeah pray for us when she comes back after this see incredible post baby performances various running fields so yeah watch out world hey um Yeah, cool. And then there was also another road running event on up at the Gold Coast, so the Gold Coast Running Festival.
00:56:20
Speaker
um And just wanted to quickly mention Zoe Manning in the half marathon. She came seventh um in the women and ran 1.19, which was a PB. So, yeah.
00:56:32
Speaker
I thought that was an awesome result. um Yeah, super quick. She's still super young. So it's really good that she's focusing on her speed. And um I think, yeah, she's got so much potential. So excited to see what else she has in store for the rest of the year. Yeah, it's cool to see her. Like she's off the back of, I guess her most recent was Kenyani, was it? She did the 67 down there? Yeah.
00:56:54
Speaker
Was that her most recent or she done something after that? I think she was at Kenyani. She has an incredible range already. Oh, yeah.
00:57:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's I can't believe how good she is. yeah Yeah. But like Jess said, it's so good that she's like working on her speed. I think we know that like like the speed is so also important for that that longer stuff as well. And maybe she'll do some shorter races as well. But we'll see, I guess.
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah. um Cool. So then I think, Billy, you're going to take us to Brisbane Trail Marathon, is it? Yeah. So Brisbane Trail Marathon was on the weekend ah for the locals of Brisbane. It's kind of a big event because it's two weeks but two weeks or three weeks before UTA.
00:57:41
Speaker
it was on the weekend, what is it, three weeks? Yep. And for the people doing the 100 or 50K, the marathon is like the perfect lead-in race, and then the 25 is also great for the 20 or the 50K as well.
00:57:52
Speaker
So in the 25 K we had a really fast race. It was Beth McKenzie one and it was in two Oh four, which is insanely quick. And I think she might be running UTA 100 off the back of an injury. This might've been like a test race for her to see if she was going to race UTA.
00:58:12
Speaker
um And second was Megan Brown, who is insanely good runner. She ran two 19 and then Jackie Freya ran 24. And then in the men's for 25, Ben Duffus was running. He's been running super quick at a lot of local races in Queensland.
00:58:30
Speaker
um He ran 141 over twenty five k with 1,000 meters of vert. I think his gap pace on Strava was like perfect 330 flat up, basically the whole race, like from start to finish. There was no no signs of slowing down or blowups or anything. So...
00:58:50
Speaker
Ben's going to UTA, I would watch out for sure. And then second place was Edward Vinning in 1.45, which is insanely fast as well. And Jamie kaspiar Casciario in 2.03.
00:59:04
Speaker
And then in the full marathon, in the women's, Ash O'Loughlin won in four hours flat. And I believe Ash is going down to UTA as well. Abby Watson was in 4.13. And then Katie Louvis was 4.15, so quite close there.
00:59:19
Speaker
And then in the men's in the marathon, Kieran O'Brien was 3.33. Ulysse Nariana was 3.35. And Michael Fenwick was 3.47. Now, the 42K in the men's always is quite competitive because the there's a crew down at the Gold Coast that always come up to race that. And Kieran's in that group, in the North's group.
00:59:39
Speaker
So good to see him get a win there. Yeah. Do you know what Ben's doing at UTA? I think he's very busy at the moment with the... with research I'm pretty sure so ah last time I spoke to him it was the 22 but if he's that fit over 25 I wouldn't be surprised if he just decided to do the 50.
00:59:59
Speaker
I hope he does. I really hope he does. Yeah, because we haven't actually seen Ben in... We've seen him run Queensland races, but we haven't seen him do anything um interstate, I think, this year. So it'll be cool to see how he goes.
01:00:12
Speaker
um And it looks like he's sort of focusing focusing on his research, but still running incredibly quick. yeah Yeah, and I think that's the thing when you can just stay at home and just train from home really hard.
01:00:25
Speaker
and no distractions, no worries about travels to races, probably no tapering, things like that. You can train really well. If he does go down to UTA and just decides to rip in because it might be the only interstate race of the year, then, yeah, I think he's going to have, regardless if he does the 20 or the 50, I think he will be, yeah, at the front for sure.
01:00:45
Speaker
Hard to beat, yeah, yeah. i just checked also Zoe Manning ran... um noosa 50k uh in the end of in the march so i was confusing myself but um still very impressive run for her yeah awesome um yeah i would say yeah but a few of the people from queensland doing uta and that using that race as a prep race you can see that there's a few fit people coming down from queensland for sure yeah damn i'm gonna have to remember all this for i think me and james are gonna do a little preview episode for uta so i'll have to keep this in mind nice one cool
01:01:24
Speaker
I think that was ah is that that's all our results for this week, I think.
Upcoming Race Previews
01:01:27
Speaker
um We've got, ah again, a ah bunch of not so much overseas. Next week there is the sky running race that um Simone and and Blake are also going to be running in Japan, which looks even crazier than the one they did this week. I think it's 25K with like 3,000 meters of up and down. So that's like the percentage grade on that average throughout the races.
01:01:54
Speaker
A bit mind-blowing, but um yeah, so that'll be cool to see. um And then there's a bunch of really cool races happening domestically, maybe not some of like the biggest races, but some some like iconic ones and some some races in some cool places. So there's the Ikara Ultra in the Flinders Ranges.
01:02:13
Speaker
I think Ben Burgess is doing that one on his way up to Alice Springs for Westmax. um now can he'll run which is in Aubrey Wodonga um I think it usually has some prize money on it and is sort of like known to sort of get some road runners across to it it's more of like a gravel race um I think Steve Monaghetty has the course record um so that's a cool race uh Wilson's Prom 100 always pretty epic down there In Victoria, the Hamilton Island Hilly Half is on.
01:02:46
Speaker
um Always a big race up in Queensland, a bit of a destination race, I think. And um Cecilia Mattis is the ambassador this year, which is really cool to see. And then Kenyany Trail Series, maybe the first one of the year, I think, down in Tassie on organ pipes this weekend. So that's a really cool race. I think that'll be fun, like up on the mountain. So, yeah, some cool...
01:03:11
Speaker
Lots of cool races. I would like to do all of those races, actually. They all sound very cool. Yeah, nice. Yeah, I think i think um I went and ran out on the Uedah Sky Race course um a few weeks ago just because I wanted to do it in the next couple, or next year, hopefully.
01:03:27
Speaker
And it is it is basically an accumulation of much vert as you can get on mountain. on one mountain So you can imagine, Brody, it's very similar to triple tops in the like height and the how it's just a mountain sitting.
01:03:44
Speaker
like You can look at the range of the mountain and that is the mountain. Yeah. Imagine going up triple tops from the start and then going down the first, like ah first out like take a left to go down to the front of the road and then you go back up and then go back down and then go back down and then do like repeat it back the way you came. And you'd probably get the same amount of the...
01:04:06
Speaker
if you did all the short repeats very quickly yeah yeah but it's not actually a lot of the course is not as technical as i thought it's a lot of like soft grass along the top oh really like nice cushioned sort of nice running on the top but the along the front of the range is where like all the technical running is which should go up and down a few times yeah i was gonna say you must have to spend a lot of time on technical ups and downs Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I imagine I will would put my predictions on in the top five, you'll mainly have the local Japanese runners if they choose to do it. Yeah, like the guys that do the Skyrunning National Series.
01:04:46
Speaker
um And then obviously sort of the more top ranked um runners in Japan if they haven't over raced already in the past month because there's been so much racing in the past month in Japan. Yeah.
01:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, crazy. Yeah, it's sort of like it's not... It's similar-ish to that sort of UTMP, the career race that you talking about earlier in terms of vertical, but it's just... I think it doesn't have the flat spots in between, which the one that one had a few flatter spots. So, yeah, I think the Japanese...
01:05:18
Speaker
were so quick on that day, like Rui was running and and one of the other Japanese runners, and they were just scampered up that hill. It was crazy. yeah too And the Italians were also quite good at it, so they they they got straight up there. But I think it'll be if anyone could do it from Australia, I think it's Simone and probably Blake. like he He's good at yeah grinding, but Simone's very good at that sort of really steep stuff.
01:05:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think if you have confidence on the day, like if they have a nice relaxing week this week and have confidence on the day, you could run... pretty like pretty quick relatively speaking with confidence for sure yeah but if you're a bit worried about the the course and worried about the steepness then you'd lose a lot of time just with being too too wary about worried about where to push where not push you just have to be really smooth and comfortable and the whole day i think yeah damn that's gonna be cool to see looking forward to seeing some footage i got to spend some time with the organizer of that course sorry just quickly
01:06:16
Speaker
um Dai Matsumoto and he is actually, yeah he's things he's around 40 now. um And he's actually beaten Killian before and he's won the climathon in Malaysia a couple of times.
01:06:28
Speaker
And he's now a bit of a beer drinker, lives in the mountains of his family, but amazing, amazing guy. And he basically created this race because he's raced like the hardest sky races in the world against the best athletes in the world.
01:06:40
Speaker
And now he just sets up races in Japan that are just like mind-blowingly difficult. i think He just just sits there and drinks beers and decides on what courses he's going to make like the following year.
01:06:54
Speaker
That's fun. It sounds like Barclay Marathon is a little bit like this guy. It's like trying to you start to devise the hardest course he can. Yeah. and And he's put ah put in so much work. I got to stay at his place and drink some beers with him and he told me a bit of stuff about how how he organizes races.
01:07:09
Speaker
And he's put in so much work into getting that race to be a Skyrim World Series race. Yeah. I think it will be a and be a good show, yeah. Yeah, nice one. Cool.
01:07:20
Speaker
What have you got up ah coming up this week, Billy? Are you traveling back to Australia this week? Yeah, just traveling. And then on the weekend, I'm going to head down to northern New South Wales to train with some other guys who are doing the doing UTA. So Liam Fearon's in the hundred k and then um Billy O'Malley, I think, might come out from the Gold Coast to Do some specific pacific training runs in the sort of oh water ranges, national park.
01:07:47
Speaker
Nice. Sounds good. I think I saw Billy was up at in the Blue Mountains as well. Yeah. Also in the rain. Yeah. Fantastic. and And Jess, what have you got coming up?
01:07:59
Speaker
um Just, yeah, a lot of work. I'm single parenting our dog at the moment, which is hard. I don't i don can't imagine how actual parents do it, to be honest.
01:08:13
Speaker
But just makes life a bit more busy. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, actually, i just want to close off with something. A message I just got from... um an international runner who was asking me about the accommodation for UTA.
01:08:27
Speaker
i was like, have you been to Australia before? And he was like, no, it'll be my first time. I'm a bit afraid about the snakes and spiders. We don't have these kind of animals in Europe.
01:08:38
Speaker
I'm like, what should I say? Don't worry, the spider's up there and they get to about six foot. You'll be fine.
01:08:46
Speaker
Just send him the reel of um Simone getting bitten by a snake. Because he's like, don't worry, just take a snake bandage. you You'll be fine. Look, this happened to my friend.
01:08:59
Speaker
I think that would probably freak him out. Yeah. That's good. Nice one. Cool. That's a good way to finish. Yeah. What about you, Brady? What have you gone on?
01:09:11
Speaker
I'm catching up with Lockie at the end of the week, which would be good. haven't sort of had a face-to-face with him for ah few weeks or maybe a month or so. So, yeah, that'd be good to just come up with a plan of sort of what's next.
01:09:25
Speaker
um And then, yeah, just going to try and get in some more runs. um gonna like I found in the past that doing really steep stuff, Whilst it's hard load on the Achilles, it seems to be something that sort of moves it along quicker.
01:09:41
Speaker
um So I did a few steeper climbs on Sunday when I was running. So I'm going to probably, and they seem to sort of respond like it was tough during. I definitely felt the Achilles working in like minor symptoms, but like it they nearly felt better afterwards on the sort of flatter stuff. So um yeah i'm gonna head out into the hills a little bit more mostly just because i enjoy it um and it doesn't seem to be making it worse so it's a yeah we'll see i might adjust if it makes it worse so we'll see what happens oh good luck um yeah i hope it goes well
01:10:16
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. It's just nice to be back in the hills and on some trails again because it's been a while. so um And there's this ah my um there's this segment that I just love doing in the Dandongs called the Glasgow Grind. And I don't reckon I'd done it for like a year and I got to go up it the other day. So that was very special.
01:10:32
Speaker
I'm looking forward to doing again. actually got the segment stolen off me recently by one of my good friends. So I don't think I'm going to attack it until – I'm not going to attack it until next year or the end of the year at least, but um I'm going to just keep practicing.
01:10:46
Speaker
Yeah, you got to get that one back. I'm not sure it's gettable, but um I want to I don't want to go out and not get it. So I'm going to go out and at least beat my time and I might not get his time. But and when I go for it, I have to be able to beat my own time. So I'm going to save that one for a later date.
01:11:03
Speaker
Sounds good. Nice one. Alrighty, I think that's a wrap. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Billy, for joining us. Thank you very much for having me as well. Excited to see us both at UTA.
01:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, can't wait to see that. So many friends to catch up with. How good. Yeah. All right, see you guys. See ya. Bye.