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Buffalo Stampede Festival 2026 Preview | 100k, 42k and 20k Race Predictions
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In this Buffalo Stampede Festival 2026 preview episode, James and Brodie break down one of the deepest fields we’ve seen for an Australian trail running weekend this year.
They preview the 100k, 42k and 20k races, unpack the course changes, discuss the key contenders, and give their podium predictions across all three distances. From national championship implications in the 100k to stacked and highly competitive fields in the 42k and 20k, there is plenty to get excited about heading into race weekend.
If you enjoy these preview shows and want access to early releases of them and where all the post-episode banter goes down, join the Patreon and support the podcast.
And once you’ve listened, send us your own top three picks for the 100k, 42k and 20k over on Instagram. We’d love to see who you’ve got.
***Don’t forget, use code PEAK at Bix’s website 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 trail stories. Until next time, keep hitting the trails and chasing those peak pursuits!
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Transcript
Introduction & Overview
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Peak Pursuits podcast and the 2026 Buffalo Stampede Festival preview. My name is James Sieber. I'm joined as always for these shows with Brodie, who I am intent on beating this year. So welcome back, Brodie. Yeah, it's good to be back. first ah First preview of the of the year and I've got to get off on a strong foot, hopefully, and um defend my title of sort of good at picking, but not that good, just better than James.
00:00:41
Speaker
yeah i think it's the it's not as bad as me is is what that type is or at least it was for last year it's weird like having not done this since what would have been gpt did we do one for gpt or was it just because yeah maybe cosi i feel like maybe we did one it for both we did one with uh cosi maybe we had kelly on i think and and remember had Yeah, that's good. So it's been the best part of four months, and then three months. So yeah, it's weird. It's it's it's good to be back. it's good to It's good to see this level of depth in the fields from the...
Race Details & Course Changes
00:01:13
Speaker
We'll be previewing today the 20K, the 42K, and the 100K. The 100K is also the long trail national championships for this year. So we're seeing a lot of names, a lot of density. it's been ah It's been fun to go through, and probably the probably the hardest...
00:01:30
Speaker
I found it to pick a top three across every race from events. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. And and like for the listeners, we, yeah James does a good job of highlighting the people that he sort of picked through the list and we have a look over it together. But this one is the densest amount of names that we've, we've picked out, I think for a, for a while. So yeah, it's pretty exciting to see that the names coming together.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, I guess even for looking at the list quickly, like in the 42K across the men's and the women, I've got 19 names I've highlighted, which are the highlights essentially mean that they're in our ones to watch across Australia and and typically New Zealand as well, because we do get quite a few people coming across.
00:02:09
Speaker
And if I come back to ah Buffalo Stampede last year, we're seeing probably... half of that maybe 11 names I don't have it quite as as as neatly laid out so it's it's it's very it's it's good to see it's good to see obviously we always across the year it really is the single track and the the by UTMB events plus a couple of others that we do highlight but we're seeing why So decided to start to start to chat for some of these people, seeing some names opening up their seasons, some names that might be targeting this, some of that are building up towards events like UTA, um and some names we don't necessarily see race too often in Australia anymore. So it's going to be fun.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Looks like a good good weekend of racing ahead. So we're going to start off with the 20K course for this year. So the 20K, along with the 10K, we're not going to do a full preview of that, is the course that has changed the most. So for people that have previously done Buffalo Stampede 20K, it's had a lot of iterations across the years. It used to be pretty hectic with just basically up, down, up, down, up, down.
00:03:16
Speaker
on some 30 plus percent fire roads. Last year had to get rerouted a lot because of the logging. So they weren't able to come down off clear spots. That's why if anyone remembers, you had a sort of an out and back to clear spot along water water reserve track this year.
20K Course Features & Competitors
00:03:31
Speaker
It's back to, I think this is what Joe intended last year to be. So it's a quite close to the 2024 course, or at least in the back half and the very front. So starting off at Pioneer Park, the the new starting point for the last couple of years, you go straight up Emily's Fire Trail. to the top of Mystic, this area is one of the areas that has been logged. So what used to previously have quite a nice bit of cloud cover or tree cover has now got completely exposed. And that is definitely a theme across this 20K course because a lot of this area has has now been logged because it is owned by hvp
00:04:04
Speaker
So at Mystic you get your first aid station, run along water reserve track, which is the connecting ridgeline from Mystic around to Clear Spot. But about halfway after a few ah few pretty mean pinches, because once you're once you're at Mystic, you still have about another 300 or so meters worth of climbing to actually get to the top of middle track.
00:04:24
Speaker
Middle track is getting pretty well known now for its technicality. It's about 2K of rocky, slippy single trail. You get shot out onto a fire trail for your final kilometer into Baker's Gully.
00:04:35
Speaker
That's where your second aid station is. Running along some the bacon Baker's Gully single trail, jumping onto a couple of the the fire trails to head you back. And then I'm pretty sure this trail is called Jaspers. It's a steep, pretty consistent, unrelenting. It has a few little plateaus, fire trail. If anyone has done, i want to say pre-2023,
00:04:58
Speaker
three ah think, the courses used to go up and also came down a really steep way to clear spot. don't know if you ever did one of those years, Brody?
00:05:08
Speaker
No, I've never actually raced at all at Buffalo. buffalo I haven't, but like I think I've done that. I've done that track before. Yeah. So you kind of like the way that used to be is you'd come or you'd come down mix, which is known for being about that 40% grade, come through Baker's gully, and then you got straight shot back up another sort of 40% star. And then it went up a 25 roughly grade all the way to the top of clear spot. It's super super gnarly um sort of was the point that people that had sent it a bit too hard down mix got found out and then at the end of the marathon you would come firing down that clear spot descent and then straight up mix which again was pretty brutal and led to my to myself cramping all the way up mix back in 22. It ah brings back some good memories, but i'm I'm very happy to see that this course has been able to go ahead for this year because it takes the 20K back to what I think of it. And aside from the actual altitude, this is getting closer back to that Skyrunning-esque of course, which is what Buffalo Stampede used to all be about. so
00:06:10
Speaker
It's definitely tougher than previous years for maybe the last three or four years. um it's a It's a very fun challenge now. It's going to push a few people outside their comfort zones. It's going to be very interesting to see how the top of the the field approach it. Because once you get back up to ClearSpot,
00:06:25
Speaker
You summit, get your third aid station, do a yeah U-turn and then head straight back down, but just bearing left, whereas you would have come up from from the right-hand side, send it down this fire trail and then you're going to pick up as a ah steep little descent before you go down Valley View Trail, pass the tank and then running along the base trails back into Pioneer Park, which is the, from the top of ClearSport, it's the exact same way the 2024 course finished if anyone has done that or is familiar with that. So It's a brutal course overall 20k about 1400 meters.
00:06:58
Speaker
It's fast. It's furious. You've got a pretty technical descent in there coming down middle track. got two pretty long grueling climbs, give or take sort of 500 to 600 meters of vertical and then water water reserve keeps going. So I'm i'm a fan of this one. Brody, what what are your thoughts on this course?
00:07:15
Speaker
Looking at the profile. Yeah, like like I'm a big fan. And like you said, like it it's back to sort of when it used to be maybe the Skyrunning Champs and more of a Skyrunning course.
00:07:26
Speaker
It's an interesting return to this track. Like I love to see that there's still these races that exist. um I think it's it's hard to scale up these sorts of events because they are so tough. So I'd be interested to know what the participant numbers are like compared to last year, um whether that sort of change in course has scared any people off. I know it has maybe led to at least one person changing which course they're going to do. Yeah.
00:07:53
Speaker
Because it is is brutal. It's brutal. But it's like the sort of course that I love and I would be very keen to to do. um the The climbs are really steep. There's some cool steep downhill single track and then, yeah, a bit of a a blast from clear spot to the finish with the being a little less steep. So I think like the speeds people will be able to hold on that stuff. I think it will be very interesting.
00:08:18
Speaker
um Yeah, I think it'll be red hot fast from the end. and if someone saved a little bit more than someone else, we might see some changes from clear spot to the finish if someone's sort of burnt a few too many bickies earlier.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's that's going to be the real challenge with this course is that you have two too long climbs, a very steep, fast descent coming down middle track, but it is technical. It's an easy way to beat up your quads and the fire trail coming out of it.
00:08:47
Speaker
It feels like a dream because you're you're back onto sort of a more even footing, but it is still very, very steep. Like most of the grade is is above 25% coming down, but the descent off clear spot is really quick, especially when we're talking about the front end of the field. Like you need to have the legs and you need to be able turn over and you also need to be able to pump all these little transitions. Cause as you come down there, there are these little plateaus, these little climbs up again, bit of a switchback at single trail. And i think two years ago, I remember very closely s j Miller and Kay Avery were racing.
00:09:20
Speaker
neck and neck and it was in the in the last 3k 2k that kate finally made a a minute or two gap and it was just in the runnable section once she finished off all the asc descending and it had this little has this little climb in there and that's just where kate had had the leg so it really is a matter of obviously you got to be going pretty hard from the gun but knowing that there is this really nasty finish that's going to keep asking more of you. And if you've if you've left it all out there too soon, you're in big trouble. You can't, there's no coasting to the finish here.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. A little bit different to last year in terms of whether there's that maybe be more significant climb not far from the finish. um so like yes there's a small climb but it's mostly downhill from clear spot i guess but then you've also last year you went up emily's around the back to clear spot did a u-turn came back to middle track down single trail and then you had that huggins up and down so you only really had one main down at that point and really it's just one continuous climb so i feel like when you're talking about a course like on a double and you've one climb, one descent, you can be a bit more reckless and and yeah legs have a bit more there. Whereas in this course, I think it's somebody that's trained that up and down, I think can really go for it, especially you're comfortable on the technical terrain and that that's not going to take it out of you. So...
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's a fun process. I do agree. I think that i just had a quick look. When I pulled the entrance ah yesterday morning, there were 736 people entered to the 20K, which I'm pretty sure is up. I think the total participation, as you can see this on race roster, their entry system, there's 3,232 participants entered for the the year. And I feel like when we had Joe on last year for the preview, he said about 2,500.
00:11:05
Speaker
so i'm pretty sure the numbers are quite significantly up so and the 20k is still by far like the next the marathon has 613. so there's still a significantly larger amount of people entered in the 20k and yes it's a tough course yes it's 1400 meters over 20k aside from middle track though you're pretty much all on fire roads with a couple of small little single track sections so there's plenty of space it's approachable the cutoffs are very kind it's just definitely a different level of challenge yeah yeah Yeah, just having a quick look at ah last year, your spreadsheet, I've got 640 in the 20s, so it looks like it is up.
00:11:44
Speaker
which I wonder how many of those people are in for a rude shock. Yeah, well, and I think that's the thing. is entrance and Entries for Buffalo have been open for a long time, and this course hasn't been out for that long, as in ah Joe created it. on his When you click on the the link on the website, it's Joe Dorff's Strava website.
00:12:03
Speaker
ah maps from the December 11th so it's been out for three months or so but definitely not as long as people have been entered so hopefully this first 12 minutes that's an interesting question how't you all that I heard people talking about the um the debacle with the ultra trail snowdonia and they were asking the question like what if they made it harder do you think people would be complaining and um they were sort of saying that they didn't think people would be as likely to complain but um yeah maybe people were fun complaining afterwards going geez that was hard i think
00:12:38
Speaker
I listened to that same podcast and they were saying how nobody ever complains about more vert, but they complain about less vert. I think where Buffalo potentially is different is there is a large amount of people that are coming onto the trails for the first time and going straight to the 20k course and not knowing what they're in for. And we've all seen like when when you're at the event, you see the people turning up in their road shoes with a backpack on, just like a normal backpack.
00:13:00
Speaker
back and you're like oh you're in for a an interesting day because it's it's not a it's not your your casual melbourne 20k trail run with 500 meters this is a bit bit more of a serious day out but yes i know yeah i know if it went from last year's course to this year's course i would i would be more happy but i know there's definitely other athletes out there that would want the more runnable style of trail it would suit them more but definitely Yes. All right. So let's let's get into it. There's obviously course record chat is pretty irrelevant. 20K course has changed so many times. um As we'll get into it, there is, they have the the course records for the 100K and the 42 from last year. The courses are pretty similar, but there are some slight variants. So we will mention them when we get to them, but there's no relevance of talking.
00:13:44
Speaker
About the twenty k I want to start us off with the women. And the first name that really stands out to me, Bridie, after a very impressive run at Donner, second to and Andrea, who andrea who you just had on for the main show this week, was Joe Hepton in incredible time.
00:14:03
Speaker
Sub two hours. ah i I thought Andrea was going to go sub two. I did not expect somebody else to do it with her. And yeah it's yeah hu Seeing her on there, she's also got the the first at the Golden Trail Finals last year.
00:14:18
Speaker
um a bunch of local wins up in Queensland. Hounslow. like ah It's going to be hard to look past her, especially what we've just spoken about with this terrain. She has the obstacle racing background. They're typically very good on the foot, they're very dynamic, they're very athletic, i typically very good on technical terrain. I'm not sure how or why, but that always seems to happen. I think about all the or obstacle races, a bit like orienteers when I see them enter any trail race. So I think Joe is going to be ah a pretty, pretty hard name to be. And I think after her run from Warby, she definitely for for different reasons some of the other ladies in the start list, like she probably has a bit of a target on her back of like, OK, I just I just made a statement three weeks ago.
00:14:59
Speaker
a Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think she like um based on how well she ran um Donna Double, she can obviously descend. Obviously, like you said, it's not it's not the same sort of course because you do have to back up and climb again and then descend again.
00:15:15
Speaker
So it's sort of two maybe slightly smaller descents, but overall um still two big descents and two big climbs. So yeah, a different character to the race, but um yeah she'd have to In my mind, she'd have to go in as favourite. I think she just like that time at Donna is a very good time. I also think about that obstacle course side of things. is Your body is constantly being challenged with all these kind of slightly unique stimulus. is like You're just getting this there's non-specific fatigue all the time and then being asked to reproduce. so
00:15:51
Speaker
In a way, I sort of see that, I guess you in the in the current terms, muscular endurance side of it, it's non-specific, but it's there. And that really suits like that durability suits this style of racing. So,
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think she's going to be super interesting. A name that I'm curious to see what she has after a really, really good six-foot track result is Sarah Leavitt. She just came off third place there. that's only That will only be in two weeks before Buffalo. i think Sarah has shown that over this distance, she's really got the speed. She's had a first and a third at UTA, a third at Hounslow, second at the... like roller coaster and some longer stuff like and a first that mounts solitary ultra which is not exactly a smooth trail out the back of there so has the 20k speed and has the comfort over that kind of terrain trains up in the blueys like i feel like physically she has all the markers for it but i just don't know what you're going to have left after racing a fast six foot track two weeks ago
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. like And and like I guess you could say the same with Joanna, but I think she's that extra week will probably make a big difference. and And yeah, I think maybe six foot, um yeah, she might be carrying a little bit of fatigue still in. But um yeah, i two weeks is probably, like i wouldn't want to do it a week before, but two weeks, it probably depends a little bit on the athlete and maybe the fatigue they were taking into the race as well.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely agree. Depends on the athlete, but that might be her her bounce back from that might be no issue. I just think that when we're looking at, as I said in the intro, the level of competition we have in every single field, if you're not turning up in your optimized state, now that taper, that lead-in will look different for everybody, you're going to find out very quickly the people you're racing against. Definitely. Definitely. And I guess on the same on the same tune, we've got Bridget Lund, who's, ah I think, probably, I don't know if she's back from Europe yet, but she was in Europe on the on the weekend. So um she's got a different sort of race and fatigue in the legs. So it'll be interesting to see how she she can back up. But she she was the winner last year, is that right?
00:17:59
Speaker
Yep. She won last year. So it her Demi and Laura Gillard were racing yeah back and forth and Bridget was one that made the most of that final climb at Huggins and just flew past Laura and Laura then went back behind damage. He was a cramping. So she knows of course she's clearly got that, that pedigree for it. I think she had, think I think I saw she was 24th or 28th at World Unicross on the weekend. Yeah, somewhere in I think it was maybe low twenty s So yeah, low twenty ten pretty good time for a hilly 10K, I think.
00:18:31
Speaker
definitely i think i saw her strava pop up make today that could be yesterday in europe time of her still there going on some hikes so obviously you got you're going to be carrying that that travel back from her and also if you've got the opportunity to represent australia in the cross country that would be what i would be specifically training for it has obviously the benefit of having strength on the trails is going to suit the cross-country side of things but yeah i I would hope and assume that she's put more more eggs in that basket than she has the buffalo basket.
00:19:01
Speaker
but Yeah, I think it was maybe a relatively late sort of notice that she was going to be going to Europe. um So maybe not that she's been planning specifically for six months, but I guess the training is...
00:19:15
Speaker
similar-ish I think the main difference there will be maybe last year's Buffalo course may have been a little bit easier for her to sort of ah jump into off more of that sort of flutter cross-country type training um I think this course might be potentially more of a challenge especially getting up that second climb might be pretty tough If you haven't done heaps on the trails. Yeah. Well, I've just gone on to a Strava. And so 10 weeks ago, basically every week was 100K and between 1,000 and 1,700 meters. And then the last five weeks, one week was still at 100, but they're all about 500 meters of gain or 300. So the training has obviously shifted a bit from what she would typically do to what she was doing there.
00:20:04
Speaker
A traditional up-down, I wouldn't necessarily be worried or thinking about it. I think actually the style training she's probably done in the last six weeks would really suit that event. yeah Maybe this this profile will be a little bit more challenging, but she's also certainly one that has the capacity to completely prove me wrong on that.
00:20:21
Speaker
yeah Who else have you got your on for the women's field, Brody? Probably the the last big ones that jumped out of me are the two Jesses. So we've got, ah I guess there's the three J's if you throw in Joanna Hepton, but we've got Jess Jason and Jess Ronan both racing. um And I think yeah both of them are definitely in the mix. um I guess Jess Ronan comes from maybe running more shorter distances. This will be on the longer end for her but she's also no stranger to 20, 30k races.
00:20:51
Speaker
um And then just Jason's maybe the the opposite. We know she ran a lot of sort of longer races and she's she's ah talked a little bit about how she's she's keen and and firing and and enjoying having a crack at the shorter stuff. So I think it'll be interesting to see how those two two girls go.
00:21:07
Speaker
um oh i think jess Jess Jason's been out on the course. She's sort of seen it. So i think that this sort of course that actually gives you a genuine leg up because you know how much climb you've got left you know a little bit more about how to measure your effort um that sort of stuff you know what's coming so i think it does give you some level of benefit um so yeah it'll be interesting see how she goes and yeah i don't know much about what jess ronan's been up to recently but she's always she's always always in the mix so there's another those two i've probably got my eye on
00:21:41
Speaker
I think with Jess Ronan, it's an interesting one. I remember when i first came across her name, it was 2022 Buffalo 20K. And this the story then was that Charlie had brought down this this fast lady from Canberra that no one really knew about. And she just went and absolutely blitzed it. Like that year, she ran 203.
00:22:03
Speaker
Patricia McGibbon, 209, SJ Miller, 210. So she took out two pretty big names. And I'm pretty sure that was a year that it went up Emily's, down mix, up clear spot, and then came down from clear spot. It might even be a very similar way to it does it does this year. So kind of burst on, smashed it.
00:22:22
Speaker
And yeah you kind of, it's hard to know with Jeff Rundle because I can't follow her on Strava, so I can't see what she's doing. So Jeff, if you listen to this, please let me follow so I can snoop. That would be really lovely. But she could very well just turn up and, again, be in that sort of shape. I think that when you're taking down the likes of Trish and SJ, you've already beaten some pretty pretty decent level of competition as to two of the best women in the country.
00:22:45
Speaker
um She could very easily be... battle for the first or fifth and i just you just don't know what she's going to come at us with like i haven't seen anything at least that on cross my radar since the classic at worlds last year had fourth at uta 22 so definitely not not hanging around but that was behind sarah levitt and then second at buffalo 10k so she knows she knows these trails for sure Jess Jason, um'm I'm really excited to see Jess.
00:23:14
Speaker
I think that she's obviously made a few changes this year, had a really good run at Snowys. I think coming back down in distance and starting her year with some shorter stuff that lets her lean in to her speed is going to be really beneficial.
00:23:29
Speaker
The only thing that I need to be still showing is just her capacity on that more technical underfoot. So coming off middle track, how much is that going to take out of her going into that next climb? We know she can climb. She's super fit. She's super fast. Um, is that, yeah. How, how is that, that going to go across? Especially when you've got people like Joe Hepton is our level in this race that we know are very good over that sort of train.
00:23:56
Speaker
Hmm. yeah Yeah, it's an interesting one. It's ah yeah it's a hard hard field to pick. we haven't I think the other thing is we haven't maybe seen a lot of these ladies race head-to-head because they're coming from different racing in the past. yeah So yeah, I think that's yeah it's going to be interesting to see how that how that shapes up.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. know the two names I want to just quickly mention. um we have Tori Thomas. So she was fourth place in 20 K back in 23. Uh, I'm just recently second behind Nicole Patton, uh, in the Razorback 37 K. And then we also have Francis Arnott who was fourth at the 20 K last year. So another couple ladies that aren't necessarily in my fight for that podium, but we definitely could see them feature. And if it is a bit more chaotic than we may be expecting, could definitely, definitely come through.
00:24:48
Speaker
All right, let's go into the men's and then we'll come back and do do some picks after that. you to take us away for who you got your your eye on first, Brody? Yeah, I guess probably the the big ah headline is the the the rematch from Dona Double a few weeks ago. um That's probably the ones that i'm I'm drawn to immediately, but there is a bunch of others in there as well. But um yeah that would be Naife Pearce and Patrick Clark, who did battle on Mount Donabueang just a couple of weeks, well, I guess a week and a half ago now.
00:25:18
Speaker
um Yeah, we know how quick their times were. We don't need to sort of talk about that too much. We know how quick that Patrick went up, Emily Spurr last year, beating everyone to the top, including Charlie and James. So, yeah, it's ah those in the mix is going to be interesting. The thing that I think we don't know about those two, um or maybe particularly Patrick, is like how is he going to handle the second climb? Yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
He managed to get through Donner pretty effectively, um but he didn't have to go again and and he did get overtaken by Nath on the flat at the end. So yeah, I reckon he's probably going to do pretty well, but um that might be where he loses a little bit of ground on the other guys. um being a bit younger as well and not having as much time to sort of build that strength in the legs. I think, yeah, that'll be interesting to see. And and Nath, I guess we also don't know. ah Before Donna, I would have said, Nath's not that good at descending, but he proved me wrong there. The question is...
00:26:27
Speaker
Does he do it twice ah as well as he did it once is is probably the thing. He's been more of a good at the sort of more runnable races in the past maybe, but we know how good he is in in mountainous terrain as well. And up down last year at Worlds was his probably better race and that was two loops of the same. So...
00:26:45
Speaker
um Yeah, I think he's, I think we can assume that Nathan will be pretty good still on this. Patrick may be a bit more of a question mark, but I assume he'll go well. But they're probably the two leading. i don't know if you have any comments there before we move on to the others.
00:26:59
Speaker
i i just I think echoing your point but for both of them is that there's on on face value, it's pretty hard to look past either of them ah on this race, could given them what they just did at at Warby.
00:27:12
Speaker
But my concerns about either ah ah are the same with with Patrick. It is, what is his capacity to to do that double up, to to hit a race that's going to be this intense from the gun with two climbs after putting in a fast and more technical descent. Last year, we saw him first to, I think he was first to the summit at Clear Spot. So blue pass James and ah James Barnett and Charlie Hamilton to Mystic.
00:27:39
Speaker
I remember i was standing at the top of there marshalling and he just came flying past me and I was like, who is this kid? And just looked effortless. But then by the time he gets to the finish, he's in sixth and he's just not had had those legs.
00:27:49
Speaker
He's a year older, year more training. I did see that he has done, he had a 34K hilly long run before Donner. So he's done longer, which runs now. Yeah. So I think some of the questions like nutrition over these courses, like we, we know that's not going to be a big, big question for these guys. It's his body definitely be more resilient.
00:28:11
Speaker
We just don't have the, we don't have the knowledge yet to see. I think he was going to be right there. It's just, can he take that win? I'm not sure. And Nath, I think, again, before Donner, I probably wouldn't have said that he's going to make a top three here after that. And then also one of his runs on Strava, he might have been last week, actually. He went and did roughly a 22K with 1,400 meters locally, bunch of really repetitive climbs. And the degradation in gap across those climbs was basically nothing. like he he wasn't He wasn't going slow at all.
00:28:44
Speaker
And they were just they just kept pumping them out and pumping them out and pumping them out. So I do i think that his, what we classically call his durability, his fatigue resistance at the back end, he's worked on it. We know that he's got better a lot better on the downhills.
00:28:56
Speaker
He's been training really well. his head seems in a really good place. And when I interviewed him, And he just, like, as you said on on the main show this week, he came through the finish in 145. No idea how fast he ran at Donner. And that's got to be a massive confidence boost. Like, oh, crap.
00:29:11
Speaker
Like, that was quick. So he knows the shape he's in. I do think he probably has the physical capacity to match on this course. um The two two, well, one's not local anymore. They were local. The Barnett brothers. Hayden is still local. James james has moved moved back down to Melbourne now. But these guys are really, really tricky to know.
00:29:33
Speaker
ah But if they're coming in in form, we saw James last year give Charlie a great race. can't actually remember. did Did we name that the the men's head-to-head battle for the year last year? it was definitely one of them either. Either that or the UTA one.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah. So great battle. James on middle track. No, no one can touch him apart from maybe his brother. These guys are great at hitting those descents into a sense.
00:30:00
Speaker
The caveat I now have with James is that most of training has been done on the Dandenongs, very much like Nath. He's out of that environment. know he's been a lot a lot more time on the bike. We haven't really seen him race, I don't think at all since UTA 22, unless it's something you can remember that I can't, Brodie. um But he's yeah like he's coming back from second from last year. Dealing with the demands I've got no doubt about. Hayden is a bit of an interesting interesting one. We saw an incredible stage race for him at GPT. He just came first at Bogan Conquestathon slower than his time from 2023. But he did also say that once he passed, I'm pretty sure it was Ian, on the descent, he just put it into cruise mode. Now cruise mode for him was still like three forty s
00:30:40
Speaker
down there, but I looked back at his 20, 23 descent time and down Estelle Spur, he was two minutes slower. So, and and and i I have no reason to believe that he would not be able to match that time. So I do think he did save his legs a little bit, which two O six on that course granted is another up down. He's definitely in shape.
00:30:57
Speaker
It's just how how much has he got to give. He has also rented for the marathon. I did chat to him. He said he was going to race the 20K all out and then try and race the 42K with everything he's got left. So yeah, both both of them, they have different they have they do have different strengths in in this, but where they're going to feature, where they're at with their training at the moment, how confident they're feeling on this style of terrain, especially James Hayden sort of says, so he's still got that that familiarity is going to be a really interesting. We want to see how that plays out. I don't know what you your thoughts on that on those two.
00:31:27
Speaker
yeah like i know james had some injury or some niggles earlier in the season i know he was supposed to be running at kilcunder and then he didn't um and sort of just reshuffled just to focus on buffalo he seems to have sort of got back into some decent running since then and like you said supplementing with a bit of cycling so i think his fitness is probably okay but maybe like okay versus like absolutely sort of in a really good place might be the difference between him really being able to match it with with nathan patrick like compared to nath who's been like really consistent for like 10 weeks plus last year and we know james has had good training in the past but yeah i just i just feel like when you're maybe 95 it's hard to compete with someone who's closer to 100 um
00:32:14
Speaker
um so it might might be a bit tricky. Like he did he did run at GPT last year as well. He's running in a relay and he put down some pretty quick times on some of the legs that he was doing. So he's ah he does have some sort of relatively recent shape and he looked like he was coming into this year with,
00:32:33
Speaker
uh in pretty good form um but yeah maybe the niggle might just have taken it out of him a little bit and i think let's say he was racing against uh maybe someone who like a nath or a patty who weren't sort of at the top of their game then maybe he's more in the mix but i think yeah it's pretty hard to compete um with people who are at the top of their game who are also very good when you're not quite on the top of your game I feel like we're going to echo this a few times, but even last year, I feel like if you were somebody that historically would be fighting for that first place, you could come in at 95% and pretty confidently get a podium and potentially even just get the win because that that depth just hasn't been there, especially from from the female side of things.
00:33:17
Speaker
But that's just not the case this year. And I'm sure we're going to see the same at UTA as well, is that you've you've got to be coming in. basically 100 with good training good mindset i think i think last year like obviously the the field like if think of the men's 20k like it was a great field and the depth went back pretty far but maybe the top end of the field wasn't in their 100 shape whereas i think the top three this year is people who are aiming for the 20k and are in pretty good shape so like it's whereas like even charlie last year he did buffalo 20 and he's obviously a fantastic runner um but he that wasn't his goal he was just using it as a building race so he was never going to be he wasn't at his 100 for 20k and and maybe james was in the same position patrick was a young dude like i think this year's the 20k and maybe it's in some of the other distances as well you've got people who this is their goal race for the first half of the season And the big, obviously battle from a race perspective is this falls on the same weekend as KMR. KMR has the mountain champs course and we'll, we'll be doing a preview of that later on, depending when you listen to this, but this is by far the more competitive, like of that distance in the, in the fields. And so we're not, we're not seeing that many names not being in here, which is, which is, interesting which is, it's good to see in the sense that this race is dense, it's deep, and it's going to be very, very fast and furious on on this train.
00:34:41
Speaker
Another name that I'm i'm excited really excited to see him back on his art list. We didn't really see anything from this guy, don't think at all, last year. Maybe Buffalo.
00:34:53
Speaker
and yeah, it was Max Taylor. so yeah buffalo 10 i think yeah i feel like it's buffalo 10. but maybe like third behind blake and ian so not like not not winning races like he was in 2024. i i don't think i have i have a feeling i might made a mistake in my note here i actually think he might come 13th uh yeah i'll look it up whilst talking but um max in 2024 was essentially unbeatable like he came off this time of the season he was yeah
00:35:24
Speaker
Yeah. And he he, he, at that point had set the Donna double course record. I think he ran about one 51 back then he came in one 50. Thank you. Came into Buffalo, won a 10 K. Um, and then back end of the season, sort of coastal and BTU, he dropped off a little bit. We're still still talking fifth at the golden trail finals, but yeah,
00:35:45
Speaker
I have looked into him from from his training perspective. He's climbing well. He's been training consistently. Max has never been high volume. He's a pretty like high intensity sort of style trainer and very relaxed when he comes into this these sort of things. I don't know you've any more intel on him, but again, he falls into that same Jess Ronin category for me of like, I just don't know what, if he shows up, he's going to be right there.
00:36:07
Speaker
But I don't know if he... I don't know if for sure, but... My guess is Max is not in Max's best shape. I don't think he's in bad shape, but I don't think he's in his best shape. Otherwise, I reckon we'd be hearing some whispers of watch out for Max. Watch out for Max. I haven't heard those whispers. um yeah I think he'll definitely, like you said, I think he'll definitely run really well and he's going to be but yeah there's not going to be an easy third or fourth place with Max there. like He's going to be he's goingnna be pushing. like He's one of those guys that's going be pushing really hard for maybe third to fifth.
00:36:42
Speaker
um So I don't think he can win, but I also don't know in detail where he's at. yeah That's just my vibe. He's probably the the name on that list where if you had to say like which one's the dark horse that if he's in shape could just surprise us and win, it would be Max.
00:36:59
Speaker
But like you said, I feel like we would have heard whispers if Max max was in shape. And and it was it was. He came 13th last year in the 10K. And I remember looking pretty pretty done at the end. So it wasn't just a jog. so Yeah, we'll see where we go um We do have a name. So Toby Sparks is currently in the marathon.
00:37:15
Speaker
I had a quick chat to Joe Dorff, race director, and he said that he's proof of Toby is dropping down to the 20K. I'm coming back from a calf thing for a while back. So ah you you probably spoke to him bit more recently than me, Brody. are your thoughts on Toby's chance in this field if he is in the twenty k Yeah, look, I think he was in great shape at the end of last year and then going into two days like he held on to that. um I think he like he's been training for a fair few years, so I think he pulled the fitness back pretty quickly um and he didn't have heaps of time off, um but he did have a bunch of he did have a few weeks where he was he wasn't running. So and then he sort of gradually built back up 40K week, 60K week, um that sort of thing. So again,
00:37:57
Speaker
I think he's he's probably had a maybe a more of a setback than James and I think we put him in the similar basket where in any other gear, yeah, he's coming in at 90%, 95%. He's a top, he's he's a he's fighting for the win. I think...
00:38:16
Speaker
with those other guys being in such great shape, I'd be surprised if he's fighting for the win. But again, I think he's going to be that third to fifth, ah maybe even, yeah, pushing the top guys. But I think it would be hard for him to be um like at the top in this race. But who knows? he might He might surprise us. We know he ran really well at two bays. He beat Michael Tosin, who then went and blasted um the 50K. He also beat Curtis, who...
00:38:43
Speaker
who came third at two bays who also had really good run at donna double so it's not like he's uh not in shape um and i get the feeling that toby might be more designed for this sort of race than he is like a flatter two bays race so um yeah i think if he hadn't been injured i would have been picking him to be very competitive with nathan patrick but i think yeah throw the injury in there and it's maybe a bit too much I agree. One last one I am interested in, though, is Josh Goading.
00:39:15
Speaker
josh Josh normally would run a bit longer, and he's also run the 50K recently, I guess, and and he ran decent there, but maybe not blew blew it out of the park. But I think this sort of steeper stuff appears to be more of his kettle of fish so yeah i'd be interested to see again i don't know if he's going to be competing for the podium but i think he's one that might be in that third to fifth position yeah i i think i've i've definitely got him in that third of the fifth it could could again sweep through and take take a bit higher up if there's a little bit of carnage or someone someone doesn't have the day that we're quite expecting again we've seen josh put in some some great results over that 50 to 100k performance when he wasn't the start list for snowys but was a dns there so A little bit of an unknown over this distance of how how well he can keep up if he's got the the just sheer speed to match these these boys. But we will we will find out. All right, let's go. Let's go to the women.
00:40:11
Speaker
I'm going to give you the the honors of picking first since you were the winner from last year. Does that mean you can't pick the same ones I choose? Well, as I said before we came on, I'm full into this. I've got them all listed out. I didn't pre-pick a single person last year. So the irony is I'm going to lose by more this year.
00:40:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um All right. I'm going to go Joe Hepton for the win. oh this is where it gets hard. I think the second to fifth is tricky. Yeah.
00:40:44
Speaker
ah Sorry, i haven't thought ahead on this. I reckon and Jess, Jason, second, Bridget, one, third. Cool. All right.
00:40:56
Speaker
I'm going to match your first two. So I've got Joe Hepson for the win, Jess, Jason for second, and then I've got Sarah Leavitt third. Yeah. I think i'm I'm finding it hard to pick between Bridget, Jess and so Sarah sara there. I think the three of them, any three of those could be second. So it's, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens on the day.
00:41:15
Speaker
Men's race. I've got Nathan for first. I'm going to go first.
00:41:21
Speaker
I've got Nathan for first. I'm i really i hope um'm i'm looking at who I've put this number two next to and I'm like, oh, this could be a really good shout or it's going be backfire, but i'm going to go for it. Hayden Barnett for second.
00:41:35
Speaker
and then wait patrick clark for third damn damn i don't know well what am i missing him on hayden that's uh that's good and i know just having run with hayden a few times and knowing his like natural capacity to go up and down yeah actually think he's somebody that doesn't need to be 100 fitness yeah yeah he wouldn't be nath but i think he could beat someone and i might be completely wrong with this like patrick on this style of course on a different type of course is absolutely not because what something handed to him but yeah yeah all right i'm gonna go nathan and i wrote off patty last time so i'm picking patty this time and boy like if i pick toby third and he runs the 42 instead can i have james as third yeah i'll give you that okay so toby and then james if toby doesn't run
00:42:26
Speaker
Yeah, totally cool. All right. Cool. Right. I'm going to write these down so I don't forget you got started on the 42K. um actually you You don't really know that the courses, do you? Sorry. i just realized as I said that. I know the course relatively well, but I guess ah maybe I don't know the exact route to get out there. Maybe you should give us the route. I'll run through the course and then I'll try and i might have to come back and ask you again who you picked. But I'm pretty sure can remember. ah memory My memory is not good as I'm getting older. uh so marathon course it's very very very similar and i actually i had to ask joe i was like where is this difference that you're telling me exists because i can't see it but it's essentially the same the same start as last year so in order to spread the field out a bit create a bit more space last year they went from
00:43:12
Speaker
starting at the car park and actually that somewhere that looks like it has slightly changed but starting the car park running back down the chalet road so ah this is like the chalet road is closed if you're thinking driving up to the chalet they either have bus shuttles from cresta car park or from the bottom um so run down chalet road take a left on buffalo road run on run up that a little bit and then you turn left onto the monolith walk or the monolith track so that's the that's the first point it hits a single trail It's probably narrow-ish for about a K and then it opens up for about a K before you then hit, like as as in terms of single trail, then you hit the fire road going back towards Lake Katani. So this is kind of the the classic way the marathon used to start. So at this point you're 4K in. So it has it has given opportunity to spread. And as we said, there's 650 people or so entered into
Marathon Course & Strategies
00:44:02
Speaker
this. So like they they do need to not make that too hectic.
00:44:06
Speaker
Uh, bare left, go on the underground river single trail. I'm sure it's actually a name for it, but actually, it's called the underground river track. And this is like the first kind of technical section of the course. It's, I would definitely say if you are, if you're going fast at the front, do watch your feet. Cause there is some very turny tight switchbacks with some awkward steps and loose underfooting.
00:44:26
Speaker
But more so if you're in the mid to the back of the pack where it's going to still be quite congested. Just take your time through here. It's a bit like going down the steps at UTA. Like it's just an easy place to slip and fall, especially if it's wet. So take your time through there. It's got a climb back up to the chalet car park. And then you start the descent down the big walk. Big walk is a great descent. It's kind of three different parts to it. The first part, there's some... some tree rooty single trail into that rock section. The rock section can be a little bit tricky to navigate the course. They do well on marking it. It's a lot easier to run down it than up it from a navigation perspective. Spat out onto Buffalo Road very briefly and then you hit this beautiful bit of single track which takes you from 12.5 through to
00:45:08
Speaker
about 15 and a half K. And this is, this is like the magic gradient for downhill. It's it's probably 5% or so super soft underfoot, but not sticky. And you can just roll down here. It's yeah beautiful, beautiful spot, but it is a place where you get a little bit carried away.
00:45:26
Speaker
and you can really blow yourself up and we see this so often with the marathon and people get down to your robin which is the second a point at 18k and their day is done like they've gone a bit too bit too hot at the start this first few little climbs they've gone like well above threshold into them legs are starting to get heavy then they come down they're trying to keep up or they've just got a bit carried away and then they you come through you robin hit the bitumen row climb turn left onto to keatings and then they suddenly realize oh i'm in trouble because keatings is one of those climbs which it's not very long i think from the point you turn off the road it's about one and a half k but it's that real douche grade where at the front of the field 10 11 you're 100 running it you can still be quite aggressive on it
00:46:13
Speaker
But if you've cooked the legs in that 10K and you've dropped, you've probably got 1100 meters, I want to say, maybe little bit more of downhill in your legs by this point. So they've they've been pretty beat up.
00:46:26
Speaker
So up Keatings, down Keatings, it's just a nice fire road through the Buckland Valley, third aid station. and Then you turn right onto what's the main climb of the course is going up Dingo Ridge. So you've got a pretty decent wall to start off with.
00:46:38
Speaker
It's not super long. One of the nice things with this climb is that there are these plateau points. I won't say they go flat, but they definitely do level out. So if you're hiking, you can definitely transition into a run or it just gives you dig you that chance to open up your gate a little bit.
00:46:54
Speaker
Something new that Joe's got on here is that they've, and then ah if they had it last year, I missed it. They do have a water point now at the twenty nine k point, which is roughly a K and a half up the climb. So this is where I think the the Dingo Ridge Road intersects. So they've they've said that they're going to have water, ice, electrolytes and lollies.
00:47:14
Speaker
This is another climb that is super exposed. So even if like even if you are fighting at the front and you haven't taken ice from Buckland Valley, if you feel even a slightly slightly bit hot, just grab grab what you can. But even more so for for the back of the field, when you're going to be hitting this at 12 o'clock, 2 o'clock, really hot, really exposed, same for the 100K, that's a ah really really nice touch for them to add that in. Because otherwise, it's 50-minute climb for the front men, about a 58-hour long climb all the way to the clear spot for the front women. So for them, it's a long time as in to be to be in the sun.
00:47:51
Speaker
But if you're yeah towards towards the back of the pack, that could be a three hour climb. So do definitely do use that one. Look after yourself. Summit clear spot, turn around, come back on yourself a little bit. And then you're going to run back towards the water reserve track that the 20K comes on and take a left down middle track. Middle track, you send it through Baker's Gully. There's another water spot.
00:48:10
Speaker
along the single trail baker's gully if you find yourself running running on the bitumen you have missed the single trail uh so definitely look out for that one and then a quick left right left and then you are in the finish so this is a very fast marathon course part of um pick up a conversation brodie that you tried to answer with billy's question on the the main show it's uh it was a conversation that billy and i were having and we were talking about this sort of course and just the fact that like There's so much more time in this marathon course on the both the men's and the women's fields. I can feel that Anna McKenna ran 3.45, 3.48 on a slower, I'm pretty sure it was a slightly slower version of this course two years ago. um me and I were around like 4.08, 4.09, but I think from the women's field to win this, you're going to have to be well under four hours.
00:48:58
Speaker
And in the men's field with who we have running, like I would not be surprised if you see a sub 3.10. the point but is it what is the quickest time uh i know the course changes but roughly the quickest time i think ah anyone's run on a version of the marathon course is my version that is the downhill version yeah yeah like if you if if you were to take the time that blake has run up this marathon course and flipped like did the conversion it's probably a sub three or getting very close to the equivalent of a sub three If you take take billies Billy's run at um Trans Gran Canaria, for 47K, 46.5K, much more technical underfoot, but the same sort of elevation profile. He ran 3.45, and Mikey's only run, Mikey ran 3.27 for five less K. So if you think about that, 5K, 20 minutes, like there is definitely a lot of time in this. So I think with some of the names in here, assuming nobody takes a wrong turn, there is going to be a sub 310 time for the men. And and I wouldn't be surprised.
00:50:03
Speaker
I think so. you've been big on times recently. Mikey was in pretty good shape last year. He then went to Dark Canyon and ran pretty well. Yeah, but he had nobody to push him. was running yeah okay yeah he was he was running with ash offman down down the bottom ash was one that then didn't make it to the finish um he fell over um so think mikey being pushed i think he could have run 315 on that course yeah okay yeah you got you got two guys running up dingo ridge together yeah yeah yeah okay So that's, that's my thing, like the, the level of competition plus the time I saw, I think Mikey had in this course, um, I'm, I know times don't necessarily matter everybody, but I get excited talking about them because I just like to see the level of this that's going up. Um, and so, yeah, I think this is a, it's a fast, it's a very furious course.
00:50:47
Speaker
It has its challenges in the sense that there's 2,500 meters of downhill, 1600 meters of uphill 26 and 16. uphill more twenty six and sixteen And that climb up dingo can really break some people, especially you've left a little bit too much early on or you haven't looked after yourself. Because you when you're going downhill for... Charlie went downhill in 40 minutes in 2024 when he ran it.
00:51:08
Speaker
So it's still a 40-minute descent. You can get a bit behind on nutrition, get a bit behind off hydration, go a bit too hard. And then you've got a hot race going forward. Like the the conditions for the weekend is obviously we're we're recording this on Thursday, like a week before. So it's a little bit irrelevant, but it looks like lows of sort of five to six and highs of 20 ish. And some say sunny, so some say rainy. So it's always mixed conditions. But if if it's if it's warm, it's hot on that Buffalo course, especially climbing up Dingo.
00:51:37
Speaker
um Yeah, you're right. i've been pretty I've been pretty good with my outrageous time. yeah um statements recently so we'll see we'll see if that one lives but yeah I do think i I do think we're going to see some pretty pretty quick times just the names the depth of competition in both like I'm I'm very excited about this 42k women's and men's field All right, i'll let you start us off this time with the women's. who's Who's got your eye? ah there's ah Like you said, there's there's a lot of big names in this. and And again, maybe we're seeing some people come down in distance and some people go up in distance, as we often see maybe with this 42K, the sort of mid or sort of just ultra distance. We see people coming from short distance trail running and and then people coming down from 100Ks maybe, or they're doing it as ah a training run for a one hundred k race coming up.
00:52:27
Speaker
later so yeah it's a nice mixture um oh i think i like i think the big ones that jump out me are beth mckenzie um and kate avery um kate was the person i was referencing before who got scared off by the 20k and thought you know what it's easy to run 42k um so she's gone up and jumped into the 42k um i think she's on a trajectory to sort of really come into her own um after after giving birth last year she's had some really impressive runs at the end of last year donna was maybe not the best that we see out of kate but i think the course is definitely not the course we would be expecting to see the best out of kate and i think she was pretty happy given what the course was and i think this course
00:53:14
Speaker
probably suits her a lot more um and probably for that same reason it also suits beth i think though i think the two of them are actually fairly evenly matched in terms of their strengths um and their weaknesses probably um the difference being kate maybe more recently has done shorter stuff and beth is coming down from the longer stuff so yeah they're the they're the two that i've probably got my eye on um And I'm really interested to see how that battle goes. I think it'll i think they'll probably descend similar.
00:53:44
Speaker
um So I think it's going to come down to who's got the most guts at the end up up Dingo Ridge. And I think that might be where that race is decided. But I guess we'll see. Between those two. There's others in there that could also be in the mix.
00:53:56
Speaker
And we know how good Kate is at climbing. I was, I was thinking, okay, this is quite a big step up in race distance for her, but i I did forget that she won the 30 K at Cozzy at the back end the last year. And it's been three months since then. So when I remembered that, and this course, if you don't you don't have to be the best ascender in the world, the distance just don't have to beat you up.
00:54:17
Speaker
and you need to be fast and you need to be a good climber. um You don't have to be particularly technically efficient to run really quick on this course. It's just middle track and maybe the underground river for for the top end of the field that would call it anything kind of technically-ish. So yeah, I mean, there's actually a video. Picking between Beth and Kate for me is, I'm i'm really struggling. I think looking looking at Beth Strava Instagram, the tower of DNF doesn't seem to have really done anything to her both.
00:54:47
Speaker
from a psychological perspective or from a physical perspective, she seems to bounce straight back into training. Um, she's doing some very impressive, big uphill threshold workouts. She did a, did a 10 by five and kind of what's become that classic swap style of uphill treadmill, which is a very good replicator for Dingo Ridge. It's a 50 minute climb or fifth hour climb for her. Uh, granted, i think they do it at 8% where this is probably averaging about 15%, I want to say, but that's also what she does. So warmups app. So,
00:55:16
Speaker
but it is a step down in distance. We've just seen her smash Javelina at the back end of last year. ah That said, I actually do know if Kate's done a road marathon. ah o I don't actually know. I don't think so, but I don't i don't know for sure.
00:55:30
Speaker
Okay, I've got race for you here. i'll see if she's got anything up. But I think the the thing that strikes me is that you've got Beth, Ella McCartney, and Zoe Manning who all have two 30-something marathons, like 35 to 38 or so. So we have three very fast women in this field. Does Zoe Manning have a 230 to 240 marathon?
00:55:51
Speaker
appreciate that's what as As it came out mouth, I was like, oh sorry 2 240 247 okay still still very quick in the conversation yeah so but i i'm i fully believe if kate trained for a road marathon she would be well into that 230s if not have the capacity maybe to go even faster that so it's like yeah there are yeah the the speed of the ladies in this on the the flat perspective is crazy and you you need that i think the boys the boys are gonna watch out Oh, definitely. like It would, despite how competitive this men's marathon course I wouldn't be surprised if one of these ladies is coming in in fifth overall.
00:56:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I don't think it'd be higher, but it's, yeah, it's it's going to be be very fast. So yeah, I'm struggling to fit between Beth and Kay. As I just mentioned there, the other two names that are really standing out to me, Ella McCartney, sixth recently, sorry, sixth recently at Tauera,
00:56:46
Speaker
Training partner of Beth. She was part of the training marathon that Zoe, Beth, Ella, and somebody else up there all ran. And they ran a ridiculous time and they're all doing it for a fun training run, which you can hear more about on the episode that Zoe came on at the main show oh couple of months ago or so. i just don't know like her training block in general just looks like training for a road marathon with some hills so whereas beth and zoe i would say train a bit more purposefully for the trails beth has a lot of flatter flatter miles as does zoe uh we just haven't seen ella in this level of competition and just not knowing how much does this matter to her like is is she gonna and it's the same
00:57:34
Speaker
for any of them really like how how hard are they all gonna go for this one uh and then zoe her the main thing for zoe for me is just what's her recovery been like after tower because unlike beth who didn't finish she did get to the finish in fifth at 102k it is six weeks so it's not an un like it's not a crazy turnaround we've definitely seen a lot a lot tighter but yeah Again, is is that is she back to her peak shape? Because her peak shape 100% could be fighting for first.
00:58:05
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see. We know, like having spoken to Zoe, she's she's busy. She's just started a university. um So she's got lots of other life stuff going on. um And it sounded like Tara Wira was a...
00:58:18
Speaker
was a big goal as much as as much as Zoe seems to set goals. It seemed like it was it it was a big goal. um So, yeah, it was a long time ago. Well, not a long time, but a decent amount of time, definitely enough time to recover. But um being a bit younger maybe than someone like Beth and also Beth having sort of not finished...
00:58:37
Speaker
I think maybe there ah maybe that will still be a bit close. I know like listening, like reading Juliet Sewell's Substack about her recovery, she she was still finding a week or so ago that she still felt like she was recovering.
00:58:49
Speaker
So yeah um it's 100K does take it out of you. um especially if you've got less running years in the lakes which Zoe does compared to the the other women that she might be running against but yeah that doesn't mean she won't be in the mix and yeah I'm definitely excited to see how she goes.
00:59:07
Speaker
Yeah. Other couple of names that are on the start list. So Sophie Broome is running the Grand Slam, which means she's doing the 10, the 20 and the 42. I'm not necessarily saying that she's going to be able up there for the podium shout, but we know how good Sophie is and how strong she is. And if anybody is able to still put a high level performance out after those two days in her legs,
00:59:31
Speaker
I'd put Sophie into that that bucket. So I'm super curious. She could be what a name that we do see coming into that that top five. I don't think she's going to be up there on the ah the podium side of things. You've got Amy stock Stockwell, recently third at the Archie 50K. She was or is still part of her single track trail team, previously done the 100K here, so nose knows these trails. Hannah McCray is entered. She...
00:59:54
Speaker
did come second at the Tauera 100 mile and her Strava is very, very quiet. So if everything is going on there, she's only running a handful of kilometers each week. So don't know if she will be hitting that start line or at least hitting it with any intent. And then name that I don't really know too much about. She's had a couple of really good results for the 100K here is Ali Coripio. I'm sorry if I said that wrong, Ali. She had seventh at 100K in 2025 in 1446, but she got second in 2024 in 1341. So some really good times. First also at GCR 28 and some experience at UTA in the past as well. So could be one of those like dark horses.
01:00:34
Speaker
Again, I don't think we're necessarily talking that podium potential, but somebody that's got a few good results from her and just add adding adding depth to this women's marathon field.
01:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's it's a it's a good field. um And I think it's yeah it's definitely going to be a hot race at the at the top end. But like like you said, there's some depth back into the field as well. So yeah it's going to be good to see how that one um that one pans out. Moving on to the men's.
01:00:59
Speaker
First name, which if you talk about somebody that has a bit of a target on their back, whenever they race in Australia, I feel like Charlie Hamilton and is, is that guy, uh, from the men's field. I'm excited to see what Charlie has. We've he's been over. He just got back from team camp.
01:01:17
Speaker
Uh, he's had a second, sorry, at tower error 50 K this year. You're probably closer with with Charlie that than i am. Have you spoken to him at all or heard much from him recently? I've only heard from him to tell him to try and convince me to run the 10K. So I haven't actually asked him too much about his running. But like having seen what we can see from him on Strava, because he doesn't share everything, and then sometimes occasionally when Mike Carroll posts that he went running with Charlie, and he posted the other day that he ran with Charlie, I've
01:01:48
Speaker
which was which was funny. um But yeah, so he looks like he's in good shape. um Hard to know for sure, but he doesn't appear to have had any niggles. um He seems to be moving along well and Yeah, I guess my main question and the big question about the 42K, is Charlie going to get lost? Oh, I feel like it's going to open up a can of worms of old memories.
01:02:13
Speaker
I still put that down to it. After, obviously, he got lost. like The amount of credit that I give Charlie for racing so hard, that day. yeah Yeah. And when we saw everybody else that took that that wrong turn um ah DNF because of it or after it, ah Charlie's run to get back into second place was nuts when he was chasing down Billy. um He yeah set the CR down down the big walk, eventually ran out of legs, but it's yeah if charlie can stay on track this would be would be great to see because yeah someone like him and obviously when i'm talking about these times going down i'm thinking about okay who who actually has the the physical capacity who who can run like at a aerobic effort fast enough to make a 310 trail marathon happen and charlie is that guy um yeah within within yeah this field so
01:03:07
Speaker
Yeah, he doesn't really need too much else going on. I think i guess like yeah and the only comments would be he's had Tauera, then he's flown overseas into Germany do to do team camp. He's done a bunch of um testing over there.
01:03:20
Speaker
Is he tired? Is he like in his best shape? Does he need to be in his best shape for this? There's a bunch of open-ended questions that we will have to wait to find out. and see yeah yeah I think like if you look at how he ran in 2024 after he got lost and he applies that to the just the course, um I think, like you said, I think you're going to see a pretty pretty quick time.
01:03:45
Speaker
yeah um yeah The question is you did say... you reckon in the time can be really quick because it's going to be racing. Like who's going to go with him? Who's racing him? That's my thought because I feel like he's going to run from the front.
01:03:57
Speaker
I think he is going to run from the front. I think the the person that has the speed to try and do it and suits this style, of course, if he's done some downhills, which I think he has, is Vlad. Yeah. I think that there's there's four names in this that really stand out to me.
01:04:19
Speaker
One of them might go with him that maybe should or shouldn't, which is Mike Carroll. The one that I think could is Vlad, and the one that will come from behind is Matt Crean. So Vlad, obviously we saw Tauera, DNF, identified that as a mistake in his training, just not enough downhills.
01:04:36
Speaker
the The muscle breakdown just got the the better of him, as he found out. When he went to the toilet a bit later on that day or or the morning after, but he's got he's got the wheels he's got that base behind him like and he's got the right mindset for this kind of thing is he as fast as charlie on over a marathon if there was race one no but he's very efficient over the trails and and like yeah he's just got this abundance of racing experience so and and and i do really think this course could suit vlad's
01:05:06
Speaker
running style yes but do you think he's got the downhill that's that's my caveat i reckon that's my big part especially in this in this course because it it starts with a thousand meter downhill it's not just can you do a downhill quick at the end of your race is that can you do a downhill and then run for another twenty five k Yeah, obviously they completely completely not feasible in one site for him, but I would have loved for him to come over 10 weeks, 10 days earlier and have hard run 1000 meter downhill in his legs seven to 10 days out so that he could have put that stimulus in. If he had had that, I'd be like, yeah, he's sorted. But Persis doesn't have these hills and I don't care how many times you repeat a 200 meter hill, it just does not break you down the same way.
01:05:47
Speaker
so Yeah, maybe he needs to drive down to the Stirling Ranges. If you listen to this, Vlad, get in the car, head down to the Stirling Ranges, do a 500-metre descent, and then you'll be sorted.
01:05:58
Speaker
Yeah. So i think that's that's that's the caveat there. As I said, Mike Carroll is the other one that I think would go with Charlie. i i guess my my only thing as I'm saying this is that does Charlie now have the aura of being a level above these guys and they know that if they go with him, they're ruining their race? ah Is it an aura or is it a fact? That's the question.
01:06:25
Speaker
I think with the guys he's racing against, I agree they're very good, but he's maybe not running against the best 42K runners in the country at the moment. All of them. He's maybe a few of them.
01:06:38
Speaker
But if you assembled the 20, like the ninth piece of the 42Ks running against him, if you had Mikey in good shape, if you had Blake Turner in great shape, if you had Billy Curtis...
01:06:51
Speaker
then i think you've got people who charlie charlie's not a step above but i think potentially in this field charlie is a step above um i don't i think it's more of a fact than an aura but also it's his to lose so it's it's sort of it's a bit of both there he's going to have that bit of pressure on him um i don't think charlie struggles with that pressure per se but um i i do think he does have maybe a step above and maybe vlad is the one But again, i don't I don't know with that big downhill. if if you Like you said, if Vlad lived in ah somewhere where it was a bit more mountainous and he could smack a few downhills, then I think ah still think Charlie would be above him, but he wouldn't be a big step above him.
01:07:34
Speaker
I'm sure Vlad could just move Biggs headquarters bright. can't be that hard. Surely. Get to the eastern seaboard, Vlad. It's not like you got any roots down there. So if you're Charlie, then do you race the race as in, do you just do race the people that are in there? You run it to to try and beat them or do you race the time and just see what you can do on this course, especially knowing a little bit of history there?
01:08:00
Speaker
I think Charlie will race the time because I think, I guess it depends what he's coming into it, but I think he will race the time because he'll want to prepare himself for racing later in the year. So he needs the hard race effort. And um if, let's say, a niggle came up this week or last week, then maybe you race the field.
01:08:18
Speaker
um But if he's going great guns, then I think he'll probably race the time. But yeah, I guess we'll see. We'll uh what are your comments i've mentioned mike carroll and matt crean in there and anything to add i would have liked to see in this race after seeing it uh on the on the razorback michael dunston that would have been an interesting race i think i i nearly would pick michael dunston ahead any of these guys so michael why did you run razorback i know it's a great loop but i would have loved to see you in this race I don't, I just, I i think a economistmer says well he's, he's very involved in the single track media side of things. i just don't think he can.
01:08:56
Speaker
yeah It's like, he does, he does their socials and stuff. So unfortunately that does write out some of the, um, the, the single track events for him. Uh, one thing I would say with that result, so is Matt Crean, he came in third, he was maybe 12 minutes or so, i think back, but Matt's a very smart guy. Like he, he,
01:09:12
Speaker
definitely would not have emptied himself on that day. Not saying that Mike, he couldn't have run faster again with someone pushing him instead of, well, he obviously got times to run with George, but he's still a bit of a gap by the end. Matt is, ah for first of all, I have never seen him train this well.
01:09:26
Speaker
His, you you look at his training it's he's been working with dave burn his coach for years now dave will know exactly how matt works he's stopped having to commute from melbourne back into to his partner's place um so he's better training environment less travel consistent block moving really well potentially matt is actually the one that surprises us and goes and actually he's the one to go with charlie or to go the most like keep that buffer the closest Yeah, I think it's like he's obviously still got it by his training.
01:09:59
Speaker
I haven't seen a result from Matt in the last I keep going. OK, this is going to be like Matt's in such great shape. He's been training so hard. There's no way i could do the training he's been doing.
01:10:09
Speaker
He's going to have a crazy result and he doesn't quite get the result I was expecting. um But like you said, that result might be just around the corner. Yeah, I hope it is. I really hope it is. Yeah. his yeah he said he he He puts, it's a bit like, and actually this is this was a thought I had when I was getting all their stuff together is they're different athletes, but Matt Crean and Mike Carroll, in my mind, are very similar like people in that sense. If you ask two people that put everything Constrava on the male side that just train really, I'll say,
01:10:45
Speaker
Well, I guess you could say training well, but it's actually the argument is like, is that the best for them? But regardless, like they're putting in consistent training blocks time time of time, but have like some, some real hit results and some real missed results. Like those two sort of fall into that category for me. Um, and so I think that it would not surprise me if we didn't see like one of them have a great day and one of them like really blow back because of the competition and in this one. Yeah.
01:11:11
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. But I'm definitely yeah after after Mike's run it at roller coaster, completely solo, smashing the the the course record, a really strong run behind Michael at Snowy's. Like he's got, he's got wheels. He trains well. i don't think there's anyone that does more heat training in the entire country. So yeah he's,
01:11:30
Speaker
and I saw he bought some new blocks to put underneath his treadmill as well. Please do not do this if you're listening to it. But he's he's he's fully primed. so yeah, it it's going to be good. I think the Snowys run, i actually surprised how – for Mike, like, I think it was it it was pretty good. like i think And I think the Buffalo course would suit him better than than um the Snowys course. So, yeah I think his time there, given, like, we know how – fast Michael is Michael Tosin um I think how close he was doing whilst it was a bit of a gap like I think based on what we know of Mike and what he's good at I think it probably shows it is in pretty good shape he's got the wheels to run the fast bit and we know he's strong enough to run the rest of the course yeah yeah definitely
01:12:17
Speaker
Other names, i'm super cute I'm pretty sure this is Zach Newsham's debut at the marathon distance. I just had a double check again through his UTMB, imperfect, but the longest race, oh no, crouched that.
01:12:29
Speaker
i didn't I didn't scroll up to the tower of that he just did. Will ignore me. So um yeah, okay. So he's done tower of 50K. That was his debut at anything above basically 30K. So that brings up a big question.
01:12:43
Speaker
He's a younger runner. first time at a distance that's only six weeks away how well can you recover with that training age to do another marathon six weeks later yeah probably hard not ideal there's not many people that that that would suit at that age Hayden Barnett is Hayden we will we will see with that one um he he will definitely give it everything he's got and he showed a GPT his capacity to back up is very good but this is a very high level of competition, a name that is going to be very unknown for basically if we listen to this podcast, a winner of the Buffalo Stampede marathon in 2022 and a local guy here, Morgan Payne.
01:13:23
Speaker
Morgan's like, I think he has four kids now, a business owner, like very, very busy guy, but just diligently puts the Ks in every every week. I've never run with somebody that just so effortffless effortlessly can climb.
01:13:37
Speaker
he does lot of things are not are not dialed for morgan but his like climbing is just incredible and just a workhorse um so he's when you're talking about okay if if a couple of the guys do go out with charlie and there is a bit of a blow up or just ah a fallback who who are the people that are going to come through and potentially start to look at a third place. Morgan is one of those names there. Jack Ferris is one of those names there. um And then, yeah, potentially potentially Zach, if he's managed to recover off that well enough. Anyone else? Yeah, sorry, a little bit distracted there for a second.
01:14:11
Speaker
Did you say Jack Ferris? Yeah. Did you give him a shout out? Yeah. I gave him a shout out. I can't, I don't know too much about him. i can't see his training. He was second to to Mikey at Cozzy. Do you know matt anything more on him?
01:14:25
Speaker
Not necessarily, but I think his his time at Cozzy was decent. um So, yeah, I think that was probably the main thing that I saw. um i have a feeling he might be coached by Dan Jones, um but that may have been a different Jack.
01:14:41
Speaker
Yeah. I saw recently, but I think it was something from him that popped up on my socials. But yeah, i I also don't know a heap about him. um Yeah, so I guess we'll we'll have to see see how he goes. But like yeah, his most recent result is pretty decent. Eight minutes behind Mikey at Cozzy 50 in second place. Yeah.
01:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, there'll definitely big ones to watch. All right, I'll take the women's this time. I've got Beth to take out the win, Kate for second, and then Zoe Manning to come in third. Okay.
01:15:17
Speaker
I think I forgot to mention, and I'll mention it after you do your picks, but Kate did a 35K run last weekend. I ran with her. I did 33. She ran 35. And she's average gap pace of like 4.30 in a training run. So maybe she took like three hours 10 for 35 over similar hills.
01:15:36
Speaker
So I'm going to pick Kate because I think seven extra Ks, not too hard. I think like i just think that that's that's going to be hard to beat if she if she can do that on race day. What average pace were you guys doing if you were 310, like just over 6? Yeah, okay. Yeah, too. Yeah.
01:15:55
Speaker
Yeah. similar similar climbing and descending we did she did fourteen fifty for thirty five so like a similar percentage to um so but yeah to to the to the race. I think the downhill will be the main thing for her, but given who she's racing, who I think will be second, Beth McKenzie, I also think the downhill is not going to be a super strength for Beth. um yeah So, agree yeah, I think Kate and then jet i mean so Beth, and then I'm... Oh, that's tricky after that. I'm going to assume Zoe, but um yeah, I hope Zoe. I hope she backs up. But yeah, I think she can she can come into...
01:16:35
Speaker
If Kate can hold that, that's a 3.42 time. Yeah. I like it. And we were training run. We were cruising, but it was it was it was it was hard.
01:16:49
Speaker
It was half of yeah It's definitely half of me. You had the kind bond you called out. On the on the race on race day, if she can sort of simulate the same sort of pace um and you know you get a little bit more out of you on race day. um yeah i think she I assume she could go close to that 345. And if that's enough to win, the question is there, I guess.
01:17:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. it Do you think i it brings up a question as well? If she's doing a 35K training run at that pace, which is equivalent to that sort of 345, it sort of also puts in perspective that you don't necessarily have to be like, you don't have to be foot to the gas from the start like you can genuinely run your race and run a really fast time in this i think it's just like it's one of the challenges with this course is it's a really fast first 7k then you send it down and and then the race starts and i think too many people think and they have to be like at the front like have hit that fast to be to have a good race but you just don't um sure it's a 42k race you theoretically you should be able to chat for the first two hours yeah
01:17:59
Speaker
If you were moving along, you like you should be like people like, yeah, maybe you can go a little bit harder, but like you're not going to be going too much into that sort of heavier breathing. Like you you want to be pushing, but you're not going to be you're not absolutely foot on the gas. You're a bit controlled. So yeah.
01:18:13
Speaker
No, I don't think if you're someone at the front of this race and you can't be conversational until the bottom of the dingo, you've probably gone too hard. Yeah. like Not that you're going to have a conversation, but yeah. right.
01:18:24
Speaker
100K. So this one has Oh, we didn't do the men. Oh, sorry. Getting out of myself. Go on. I'm going to pick Carly first. Easy pick.
01:18:36
Speaker
I'm going to go... Oh, yeah. You give it you is such a good... uh argument for matt korean but gonna go i actually you know what i'm gonna go for the old boys mike carroll second matt korean third sorry for calling you old matt and mike okay So I've got what a couple of risky picks in in this whole thing. um not not Not one in this one. Charlie for first. i'm I'm going to stick to my guns and say Vlad for second.
01:19:08
Speaker
And then I'm going to to put Mike in third. Okay. That doesn't sound that risky. well it's just it's just like has vlad had enough time why maybe the reason but i i think why it is maybe the more wild card risky person in this field like i think matt and mike are pretty product uh pretty predictable um but vlad could potentially be pretty close to charlie and challenge him whereas or he could sort of blow up yeah um after the descent let's hope it's the former their first yeah definitely and i think i've said this in the podcast before but one of the earliest racing memories i've got is matt korean just taking photos of buffalo on the buff on on the stampede marathon course like racing me and then just disappearing so he knows his course well it is kind of broke my soul at that point uh all right 100k so
01:20:00
Speaker
I'm not going to give quite as in-depth of a breakdown of this because we will be here for
100K Race Insights & Predictions
01:20:03
Speaker
a very long time. But essentially, it starts the exact same way as the 20k course, but goes all the way to Clear Spot. That's your first aid station. Heads down Snake Ridge. This one is yeah a very exposed ridge. um Goes down to, pass past the towers, drops down into Buckland Valley. It's all fire roads. There is one steeper section, but not nothing challenging underfoot at all. Through Buckland Valley, that's at your 20k, give or take point, eighteen k And then you just follow the course that we spoke about for the marathon all the way up to the chalet. From the chalet, you then drop down the underground river track around Lake Katani and head through the back of kind of what used to the old Dingo Dell ski area towards Cresta Valley. This is one of the changes for this year. and i think this is kind of the only real change that Joe's got that he said makes a roughly a 10 minute difference. Speaking towards the front of the field is rather than going up and over with the old ski resort,
01:20:58
Speaker
you're just staying on the road. So this is going out and back. You don't have to do that extra climb. So it's now 100k with 4,800 meters. You come through Cresta, that's a station six. That's the 53k. It's hard because you hit it twice, but the 46k point and then 53k point, you hit the horn. All way to the horn, it's just a dirt road.
01:21:18
Speaker
Very nice, very smooth underfoot, little bit of some steps and stuff for the final K to the horn. You get this nice like really pretty single trail it's called the long plane walking track that goes out past another couple of like high high points to bring you back towards the monolith track um and then essentially retrace your steps so you're back at the chalet this is go on let me do it 65k in down the big walk up and over keatings up dingo ridge down middle track along Baker's gully and to the finish. So it follows the whole marathon final kind of 35 K essentially with that one. I think for me, the, the, the key for this one, as with with any hundred is that like, there's a lot of elevation in the first half of this race. That's where like, you've got more elevation in the first half than the second half and so make sure you're looking after yourself in that first 50 not getting carried away hopefully you feel good you've had a good training block you've tapered well you've eaten up well the days before so energy should be there mood should be there you're going straight up emily's don't ruin your 100k day in the first climb which is definitely happens it's super easy uh once you're at the horn then it's kind of that that's when your day can start to get a little bit bit more tricky um weather can be very variable up at the horn you can get really it can be
01:22:34
Speaker
humid and hot down in your robin and it can be blowing a gale and freezing at the horn so something that i've we've seen a few times is people waiting to put layers on you can feel yourself getting a little bit cold or it starts to rain it's just please just stop because you don't know what's waiting for you um same coming up dingo ridge to clear spot There's been some pretty, a lot of DNFs at clear spot when you're basically home at that point, but people are just getting too cold or too depleted because they've just had a two to three hour climb to get back up there. So it's a beautiful course. I think the it's the pick of the courses in the sense of the journey you go on.
01:23:08
Speaker
Obviously that's typically the case with a one hundred Ks, but going from bright all the way to the horn and back, the trails at the top of Buffalo are beautiful. And yeah, there's some pretty pretty hefty climbs.
01:23:21
Speaker
to be chucked into there as well. But yeah, 4800 meters. This one, Joe has left the course records on the website because it is so close. So if he does think it's roughly 10 minutes quicker, obviously we could take 10 minutes off these times.
01:23:34
Speaker
We saw Michael Dunstan take the win last year in 1029. So theoretically, there could be a sub 1020 on this year's course. And then Esther Schillag in 1051. She was closing hard on ah on Dunstan as well to come second overall back then. which is very interesting because for the second year in a row, we have one of the world's best trail runners coming to do our little Australian 100K course in the likes of Fu Xiaoxiang, which I am incredibly excited to see her on this course.
01:24:02
Speaker
yeah Yeah, definitely. Maybe... Yeah, I wonder, it'll be interesting to see how her time compares to Esther. Like, do you think do you think it's far? Do you think she can go quicker than Esther or do you think?
01:24:16
Speaker
I think if you just look at their sheer, like their performances and their results, Fu Zhao's had two second places States and a fourth at UTMB. So on paper, she is a slightly higher level than what Esther did. However, that result from Esther, I'm pretty sure was the highest ITRA 100k result of 2025. At least it was for quite a long time. So it kind of gets lost in it because she obviously she had no competition. She was just chasing down the guys once Brydie fell off of her.
01:24:51
Speaker
um And so it kind of can get lost in it. But Esther's run was very, very incredible. i was I'm pretty sure we came into this saying that her training wasn't optimal, as in she was obviously working towards Western States at that time. The same thing would probably be said for Fuzhou. When I checked her Strava...
01:25:11
Speaker
uh yesterday when i was doing all this stuff she hadn't actually uploaded any runs since the 10th so that was eight days ago and she'd only had a ride on the 11th to the 13th now maybe she doesn't upload everything um but ah no there we go she has now done ah she she has now done a couple of runs so that's good to know i was i was was worried that we were going to see a late a late drop there so moving well i think that can she run that same time yes Does she need to? No.
01:25:38
Speaker
we don't We don't know her as a runner, so we can't say whether she would just run and do enough to win or if she's going to be here to try and get as much out of her as she possibly can. It'd be interesting though.
01:25:51
Speaker
If she runs fast, I guess we'll get to the men in a moment. But if she runs as hard as she can, if she ran as hard as she can, do you think she would compete for the overall win? Yes. Yeah, I think so. yeah i we don't We don't have a Michael Dunstan in the 100k men's field to my understanding this year. yeah I think we have a lot of people that have probably finished 15 to 30 minutes behind Mikey on that course. well a lot but A couple of people that might finish fit and that puts them right in that Fuzhou target.
01:26:20
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah. I'd be very cool to see if she went out and competed for the outright win. That'd be cool. Yeah, we say and it's it's probably probably going to play out very similar in the sense that the guys are going to go out faster. That's pretty normal. That said, Fujiao definitely doesn't hang around, and then but she'll start to reel them all back in, probably from Yoruba onwards would be would be my assumption, once you start hitting the the proper climbs of the course.
01:26:48
Speaker
So, yeah, we we we will see, but I do think she can be there. Somebody that I am super excited to see back on this course had a great second-place run. at Buffalo last year. had a ah mixed mixed year after that, second place at UTA 22, which was a very impressive change of speed from the 100k and then a DNF at GPT. Haven't really seen too much of her since, but her training has has been very impressive, is Bridie Temple.
01:27:14
Speaker
I think that she ran 12.32, ended up being about an hour and a half behind Esther, i would probably say course knowledge, bit better execution, another year older because Brydie is still very young in that training. Maybe there's 30 to 45 minutes in her time.
01:27:30
Speaker
So i still don't think that she's going to be able to keep up with Fuziao, assuming that Fuziao can run something close to what ether Esther did or she chooses to to push like that. But I think that Brydie is going to be very hard to beat second place. Yeah.
01:27:46
Speaker
Definitely, yeah. Yeah, she's a like you said, she ran such an incredible, yeah, probably, yeah, such a great time last year, probably. Obviously with, ah with um Esther being there, it was lost a little bit, but I think it was still recognized how quick she was. um But yeah, another year, um I'm sure a lot more learning since then as well.
01:28:07
Speaker
Probably some takeaways from GPT. um Yeah, I think she's she's definitely going to be hard to beat. That being said, there is some pretty impressive ladies and I i think like maybe the depth in this one is is right up there with um yeah maybe one of the more, probably, maybe on the female side, maybe it's the most deep of of the of the three fields. But um yeah, I think there's some quick people there. who Who's got your eye on then?
01:28:36
Speaker
ah Like, i'm I'm really excited to see Sarah Lidoichi race. yeah um I'm not, like, I'm probably not expecting her to, I think she could have a really good race, but I also think it would be a lot to expect her to sort of have a really great race because 100k a long way um and she's only just coming she's just getting back into things the races she's done before now have been what roller coaster uh 20 and the the 20 at the snow is a few weeks ago has she done anything else
01:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, so she did Snowys and then she also had but before that UTK 50K so Cosi 50K. Oh, she did the 58. Yeah, okay. yeah And that was in i was that stack field.
01:29:21
Speaker
Yeah, she was about 10 minutes behind buying Demi. So that was the the yeah ridiculous like Andrea, Lucy, Demi, then dan Ludo. I was say about this is someone that Kate is very similar conversation is the fact that I kind of yes thought this might be too quick of a step up, but then I remembered that she ran Cozzy and I was like, okay. Yeah. So, and,
01:29:40
Speaker
yeah so and This is like the 100K is... More of her bread and butter. That's that that's Ludo. So... Yeah. And not ah we're not talking in like 100K with 3,000 meters here. We're talking ah what I'll probably put in the like the mid-range of elevation ratio, sort of mountainous style.
01:30:01
Speaker
It's not the not the most crazy thing. you can get out there it's nothing close to ccc so say but nearly 5 000 still still a pretty if you went and did a 10k run with 500 meters of elevation in that's a pretty hilly midweek run so that's essentially what this is but 10 of them so it's and it's definitely definitely not a flat course yes yeah and anyways the i think so somebody that has just been putting great performance after great performance after great performance and
01:30:31
Speaker
with not necessarily the training to say that she would, but she just keeps smashing out of the ballpark, is Nicole Patton. She's first at Oscar's 100K. Now, with a history like Nicole, 100K in her legs, I'm not worried about her ability to to respond because she did also just win the Razorback 37K. She was in second. The lady that was in front of her got disqualified for not going for missing the turn to the summit.
01:30:56
Speaker
And she's in this race. i ah I will talk about her in a sec as well. um but then first at bokeman to hotham 64k where she beat her pb by a few seconds in like just starting training to kind of shape second to gpt she was the first female for australia at the world long trail so nicole has had a great well she's had a great great career as such but a really really really great year on this course knowing the times that these ladies are going to have to run can nicole run that 12 what did i say for nicole for brydy sort of 11 45 12 so can she run that 12 hour 100k on this course yeah maybe she's i feel like she's been best at the even more only It's funny saying that the Buffalo is not a mountainous hunter ky because it is a mountainous 100K. But maybe it's more on the runnable end of the mountainous 100K. There's still a lot of running to be done.
01:31:55
Speaker
Yeah. The main thing with Buffalo is that it's not a technical course. under fact like you compare I can't remember the top of my head how much elevation Oscars has, the hut to hut. I actually don't think it's any more. I think it is around that same 5,000 meters. Yeah, it's 5,060 by yeah So it's basically on the same amount of elevation, but Nicole won that in 16 and a half hours this year. It's a much slower course. So that's the stuff that I think Nicole thrives off when it's not just about the physical, it's about the mental. It's about how well you look after yourself, how confident you can move over that terrain. Like that terrain is Nicole's bread and butter, 100%. So ah she but she's definitely she is one that you learn to never, ever write Nicole off ah because she's...
01:32:37
Speaker
yeah she's she's she's typically going to hit a lot more than she's going to miss and surprise you in doing so. The lady that I mentioned that did, that was ahead of Nicole and Nicole actually messaged me and she said that, Hey, do not miss this lady off your, um, your preview is Yvette Brady. So looks like she's originally from Ireland.
01:32:54
Speaker
Um, I said DQ'd at Razorback, but was ahead of Nicole and Joe felt that should she have not gone the wrong way, would have beaten Nicole by roughly five minutes or so. And that was a historic time for for that course.
01:33:09
Speaker
fifth at um well ah i'm just nott taking much that on here said Fifth at Warby, which I can't even check, I'm pretty sure it's correct. Fifth at GPT 50K, the Donna Double at Warby, and a second at Surf Coast 100K, which was second to Zoe.
01:33:26
Speaker
But prior to that, and this is something that Nicole mentioned to me, Yvette had a bunch of like very typical, I'm going to use the average, I don't mean that in a bad sense, but when we're talking about the the elite side of things, like nothing that would ever think that she's going to compete for for a first place or a podium will be beating Nicole on ah the Razorback.
01:33:45
Speaker
But from what Nicole said, she kind of had a few really bad experiences. She DNF Buffalo 100K last year and that caused her to get a coach, start dialing stuff in, so obviously sorting out whatever was going wrong.
01:33:58
Speaker
And then the next thing we see is six months later and she's coming second at Surf Coast and then she's just gone bang, bang, bang. And if you look at her performance indexing on ITRA or UTMB, it's like mid 400s into the 600s. It's just, its she's just, her rate of improvement in progression has been nuts. So If you ever thought about getting a coach, that is definitely one one reason to maybe do it because you never know what's hiding behind with a bit of tuning. So it's i don I know nothing more about her. Never spoken to her. Never seen her results before because she's never had a reason to pay attention. She was still like half an hour, I think, behind Zoe at Surf Coast. So we didn't really give it too much attention. But
01:34:33
Speaker
can click can clearly move well on mountain and stuff it's clearly in good shape so and i don't know if somebody's just being disqualified for whatever reason i feel like if you can if you don don't know let it put you down you can definitely use it for motivation to fire you up a yeah definitely yeah well being interesting to see how she goes yeah any other names you want to give a shout out to Christy Laurie last year had a very good year. um She was second at the Cosimyla at the end of the year. She was first at Transcend over in WA and she was also first in the Guzzler. um So...
01:35:17
Speaker
Yeah, she had some some some great results at the tail end of the year and even earlier in the year she was fourth last year in the 100k. She ran 1256, which anything sub 13 is very fast in this course. And again, if she's coming in better shape and and now has that course familiarity, again, we could be looking at somebody that could have could match maybe Bridie's time from last year in that 1230 range.
01:35:40
Speaker
yeah definitely definitely yeah so I think she's in the mix um yeah they're probably the main ones jumping at me you got anyone I missed ah a couple of quick names Alice Magoshen um A lot of races overseas. ah She's had sort of a second at KMR last year. she's put in some like good results over in the yeah UK, a couple overseas. She had a second at something called Ultra X World Champs. not exactly sure what Ultra X is. I think it might be a multi-sport thing or obstacle course or or something like that. but um
01:36:15
Speaker
second place at any world champs you're at least going pay attention to so not not a name that I'm particularly familiar with potentially a good battle for that third place as I said I've basically given away but I kind of think you've got Fuzhou then Bridie and then you've got a good battle for third um and then you've got Charlotte Lomas who again made a big jump 20 2023 2024 she was coming at UTA 100K and then comes sixth in 2025 and third at UTK 100 in 2025. So another one that's mating made huge jumps. She also had a 40th at UTMB in 2024, which I would say is a big jump from a 57th at UTK 100K that same year. So we'll be really interested to see how how she features and if she's bringing third at UTK style form. Again, a name that we could be looking for that third place on the on the podium.
01:37:07
Speaker
Yeah. Wonderful. Let's move on to the men's field. Brodie, do you want to take us into the to who you've got your eye on here? Yeah. um and The longer it gets, the less confident I am with the names. And the less I know about it, given that I haven't haven't raced as much. Like, I know the names, but I just i don't understand them racing quite as well. I'm looking forward to understanding the racing more, hopefully, in the future. But... um Yeah, I think just looking at it from afar with my undisciplined eye, um George Knight, ah we know George sort of burst onto the scene last year with his run at GPT, running with Caleb Olsen for a good bunch of it.
01:37:46
Speaker
um Yeah, he's a really promising talent, I think. And um yeah, just off the back of that, that run up in Bright the other week or at Harryville running the...
01:37:58
Speaker
The Razorback run, what was it about? Was he about eight minutes behind Mikey or was it 10 minutes? Yeah, eight minutes. Eight minutes. So, yeah, I think if we consider that maybe he was doing it more of a training run, like he probably wouldn't have wanted to absolutely blast himself on the descent, um even if he was racing hard, still a fantastic time. And I think he's sort of shown that he can compete. He can so run hard early and keep going. Definitely. So, yeah, I'm excited to see how he's...
01:38:27
Speaker
gonna go it looks like i think that Razorback run is like the perfect run in maybe even timing wise as well that big stimulus last big stimulus before 100k race um so i think he's he's timed that nicely and it looks i assume maybe he's i think i've seen that maybe sticking around in the around bright until the race um so maybe he's not having to travel as much um so yeah i think he For me, he's probably the favorite, but not maybe as strong a favorite as some of the others we've talked about, because I think there's a lot of...
01:39:01
Speaker
unknowns maybe with George because we haven't seen him race that much whereas the guys he's racing we've probably seen them a fair few more times so the other ones the other key ones jumping out at me are Ben Butler we know he it was third at the short trail champs behind Michael and Mike a few weeks ago a young guy he's run this distance plenty of times even though he's young so he's actually relatively experienced at this distance ah Gerald McPherson, I think whenever he's in the list, he's always a sneaky like third, fourth, fifth. Like he's always there or thereabouts when he races. So um I think Gerald's definitely in the conversation. And Jared Owen is probably the other one jumping out at me, um having a lot of experience in in in these races. Was Jared, did he do the ultra grand slam last year?
01:39:53
Speaker
Yes. Or did he do the grand slam? I feel like he did one of the slams. Give me a second and I will able to tell you. Um, so again, to chat and Joe, he doesn't think had, he came, he did the grand slam last year. yeah. Okay. yeah but he Joe, Joe doesn't think that jazz really like, he's not necessarily here to in that race capacity. Um, but yeah, Joe is also in a name that you can never. Never go past. Tends to tends to come through pretty pretty strong if he is there to give it everything he's got. I think Ben Butler... Last year he came in the 10K, 19th in the 20K, which we know was pretty deep. And I guess he's about 15 minutes behind.
01:40:33
Speaker
fifth in the 42K. yeah So he was he was definitely up there. Definitely. I think... Ben Butler is probably the name. Well, yeah there's a few names in here, but his run at Snowy showed he's got some real speed. I thought I'd found that that really, really impressive to watch. He's improving being been putting in very consistent training, like no obviously without knowing him, without knowing what his body responds to, but there was not, there's nothing in that that makes me feel like he's leaving it in this, in training. Like, you know how you see some people and you go, oh, I'm just not sure you're going to be coming into this as fresh as you might want to be, or yeah there's some pretty impressive Strava files here. Um, he's got a really good, and it's one thing. So I, sent, um, I sent Ben Burgess a message. because one of the other guys in the field, Godfrey Slattery, he came second at UTK, yeah beat beat Gerald by 10 minutes.
01:41:25
Speaker
his From a training perspective, he's got he gets about 2,000 meters in a week. Now, for me, on this course, for you to be able to go the speed it requires and to deal with the demands of the course, like you've got the descent down snake and the descent down the big walk is like you're too big.
01:41:44
Speaker
climbs within the middle of the race. Obviously, you've got the descent down middle track, just shy of 5,000 meters across the whole thing. when i say When I see somebody who I know is quick without a crazy amount of elevation in their week, I just wonder if they're going to have the robustness to make it through a hundred k at the speed it's probably going to go because most likely george knight is going to go hot from the gun and just see what see what the hell happens he's young he's enthusiastic he's clearly fit and he's just run with caleb for 50k or whatever it was so he's going to have that confidence there and he's had a really good run at razorback and gone nuts so but coming back to my point godfrey only has 2 000 meters in his in his week i wonder about does his legs have the capacity to to tolerate what we're going to what we're going to ask them to
01:42:28
Speaker
Ben, on the other hand, is somebody that seems to be getting in, give or take, 4,000 or so meters. So less Ks, probably similar but similar amount of time, but is putting in that elevation that is going to give you that fatigue resistance come the end. He's going to have that repeated bout into his quads for the downhills. He's going to have the strength on the uphills. He's clearly fast.
01:42:49
Speaker
And he's had some great 100K performances already. Like, yes, he is really young, but... He's already had second second Oscars. He's had a fourth last year at the 100K. He also, we spoke about this before Snowys, but he took out the Cowan half, like a local but pretty deep trail half in Canberra, pardon of me, in about a 330-ish gap. So got the legs.
01:43:13
Speaker
I feel like on paper, and obviously we'll kind of get get into this, I'm putting more weight on Ben's capacity to still be performing in that last 30K, mainly because he has that that elevation. no You're also a coach, Brody. You may see it differently to me, but what are your thoughts on when you're looking at somebody's training and and the things you're looking for? Obviously, consistency is there, volume is there, the variety of training, density, maybe a good periodation, but the elevation side of things is something that i really think in order to compete to this level, you need to have.
01:43:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think like it probably depends on the athlete to some extent and and what their history is. um But yeah, I definitely think you need a certain elevation, ah but I don't like I think some people will thrive okay off a little less elevation and maybe some of the extra kilometers make up for that.
01:44:04
Speaker
um having a look at some of like Godfrey's training like he has done some healier runs so I think even if you don't get the ah you don't get the hills over the week because of let's say where you live or your schedule and that sort of stuff that you're getting at least one key session each week where you're getting a good amount of vert I think maybe that's okay um if you're not getting any I think that's a different that's a different kettle of fish but like I'm just looking like February 22, Godfrey, for some reason, did Donna Duang.
01:44:36
Speaker
But he he he ran up and down there. He might have been visiting. I think he's from South Australia. He's done, a few weeks ago, he did, ah well, he did the Bel Air Marathon in 40, so 42K around Bel Air National Park, sort of like Adelaide Hills, 1,300 meters of climb. So a little bit less than the Buffalo Marathon course, but it's not like it's crazy different.
01:44:57
Speaker
And he ran that in three hours, which is moving. um And then the other weekend, I think he did another, say, 38K with 1400. So like he's getting the vert in at least once a week, I'm sort of seeing. And that might that's sort of how some people's training, unfortunately, just has to has to turn because of the work and that sort of thing.
01:45:17
Speaker
And Adelaide Hills is maybe different to Perth Hills in terms of you can maybe get a bit longer descents compared to maybe we compare that to what we're saying about Vlad before.
01:45:27
Speaker
So yes, I think... the ideal would be a bit more vert in the week uh for like a like this mountainous 100k but i think i would say godfrey's hitting the minimum i would expect yeah i would hope yeah yeah so it'd be interesting yeah definitely it and i Yeah, I think that it it is, as you make you make you making a good point, like the the individuality nature of it is if you're naturally a very strong, like resilient style runner, you probably need less in in your week. Whereas if you're somebody that you know that you struggle with cramping or you you struggle with that fatigue at the end of the end of the run, you're probably going to need a lot more in there. And then the accessibility feature is...
01:46:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's always a tough one. It's a case of when you're looking at people that come at it from like different directions, but similar, and you're trying to like identify where where is that gap potentially. I feel like Godfrey would smash a 42 to 80K right now. Yeah.
01:46:26
Speaker
we we We will see. the Yeah, yeah. And I think my main concern when I'm thinking about a ah race that's in mountainous terrain is is not so much the climb because I think you can get strength from bike. you can get straight from You can get strength from strength training. you can get strength from running fast. It's the it's the down. like And especially in this Buffalo course, you've got to go down Snake Ridge.
01:46:48
Speaker
pretty early then you've got to do the small climb down the small descent down into your oven and even when you come down the big descent off the buffalo like the big walk when you come back down it you've still got another run you've got so you've got there's lots of time like the resilience to be able to tolerate that i think is probably the main reason i'd be concerned by not having vert so therefore having big days where you've done some big descents um is that's probably my like ticker box and we know that you probably don't need heaps of that descent stimulus you probably need it a few times and you need to sort of top it up every now and then but it's not like you have to run steep downhills
01:47:31
Speaker
four times a week to to get that benefit. you can You can get it from doing it once a week. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. So it's going to be interesting because I feel like we've got people coming at this 100K with very, very different training.
International Competitors & Surprises
01:47:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah, in both the men's and the women's. There's so many people with like such different stories coming into this race that, i yeah, it's of all the races,
01:47:56
Speaker
As much as I'm usually most interested in the 20 and 42K, I think this year the 100K is the one that has the really interesting storylines for me. Yeah. And as we said in the intro, but haven't really touched on since, this is also the Long Trail National Champs, which the top two book the tickets to the Asia-Pacific.
01:48:13
Speaker
um So carries that extra bit of interest, shall we say, and and and weight to it. And it it definitely, on both the men's and women's side, is putting together a deeper field than we saw at the Snowys for the Short Trail.
01:48:25
Speaker
Yeah. and the And the women have the added benefit of maybe racing someone who might be at the Asia Pacific Champs later in the year. Yes. Yes. The Chinese is always a funny one though.
01:48:37
Speaker
Yeah. I'm pretty sure Fu Zhao was one of the individuals that went to South Korea though. Because there was a few Chinese athletes that went and I'm pretty sure Fu Zhao was one of them. She maybe came first or second or something. Yeah.
01:48:49
Speaker
Cool. No. Yes. The sort of athletes you might get to race, which is cool. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have another international in the men's field here. So Man Kumar Roka Magar.
01:49:01
Speaker
i got He most notably was 37th at World Long Trail this year. So we've been talking about these guys quite a lot. I think Ben Burgess came 49th from memory. I think he just scraped the top 50.
01:49:15
Speaker
So Ben, it would be one of like, if if if Ben was in this field, you'd probably be picking him as being, being the favorite man. Come on, beat him by 12 spots. Having looked at the races that this guy has done, like there's a lot of very tough events when it got a bit faster.
01:49:32
Speaker
For example, Asia Pacific long trail in 2024, he came fifth, but he was 24 minutes behind Mikey De Morantes. so And I think that as as Ben told me, this guy is known as Quadzilla. If you see him, you'll get that. Like he looks like a very strong mountain guy. um So my guess is, is that this course potentially is just not hard enough for him to, for us to see like his best performance or what would suit him best. But yeah.
01:49:57
Speaker
It's always fun when you get ah a great mountain athlete come across and do this sort of thing. And then we're like, I have no clue. You could come first by a significant amount or you might be fifth in this field or yeah further back, which fortunately he doesn't seem to have quite the racing calendar of Sanjay Sherpa who came across with Yeah, yeah,
01:50:15
Speaker
with quite few k's in his legs so a name that we don't know he he has raced 140k event 27th of feb so one week closer than what taro era was so but these guys just do that so i'm not yeah did you see the it's hong kong 8 800 meters of climbing eight thousand eight hundred meterss of climbing yeah yeah it's absolutely bonkers let's just do it different over there like and he's done that in 16 hours and 54 minutes wow just pretty good going for and that's what you can that's really good going and that kind of doubles down into the like this dude is a mountain like beast yeah you say that and i think it's true i think he's probably better at that and that's probably why he had a great run at the long trail champs because i think that had that sort of character
01:51:02
Speaker
But he also did Cienzanal last year and ran it in 2.51, which is a good time for Cienzanal. When I ran it in 2022, I ran 3.03. Charlie ran 3.10. I think Charlie would do more like 2.40 to 2.45 maybe now on a good day.
01:51:20
Speaker
But 2.51 is not hanging around. That's a good time for Cienzanal. Do you reckon that could be because Cienzanal is just so much climbing? ah But it's, see, as an owl is still a running race. It's, yeah yes, there's a big climb at the start, um but the climb is generally fairly easy and it's more like a fast runnable VK than anything else.
01:51:43
Speaker
And then from there, it's how quick can you run? um So yes, it does it does favor mountain athletes. Like if I think if you went and ran a, a flat road race like maybe this would be better if if he was a real mountain guide sierra now is better than running a road marathon because there is still that character of climbing but it is really quick still 251 yeah quick time for that up yeah so just only look at this katie scheid ran 258 yeah a sira and now so yeah i Yeah, so he did. He would have done. i guess he would have done better. he beat Katie there, but she beat him at at the World Trail Champs. So if maybe he's he's a fast runner. He's a fast runner. is yeah i be He beat, I'm guessing Roberto Dele Renzi did not have a good day, but he did beat Roberto Dele Renzi at Sierra Zanelle as well, which he's definitely a fast runner. so Yes. So I said the men had a good chance to race someone fast that might be running at Asia Pacific. I mean, the women, the men also do. I did not know about this guy. And I think this guy is probably the favorite.
01:52:44
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. It's yes, I would agree. um Cool. I think that's all. well name I did have a couple of like honorable mentions here. Warren Rolfe, he had a seventh at Buffalo, one hundred K in both 2024 and 2023 slightly different. Like the courses has been somewhat similar. There's only so many ways you can go to the horn and back, but running sort of 1236 and 1247,
01:53:08
Speaker
in those years. And then Thomas Suvatra, seventh at GPT, 50k last year, and eighth UTA, hundred k And that was a pretty deep field and second at the Grand Slam behind Jared Owen last year as well. So a bit a couple of more guys there that, again, probably probably not talking in the in the podium in battle, assuming everyone finishes, but could definitely come through into that third place should should something go go wrong in 100k, which definitely happens quite a lot.
01:53:34
Speaker
um and I think i think the more the more competitive we see these fields, with more on the line as well, we're probably going to see more people take a few extra risks and have off days because of that. Yeah, yeah definitely.
01:53:48
Speaker
Yeah, i think it's a I think if GPT hadn't become a world trail major, I think this this race would have been potentially right up there at a shot, like how iconic it is for an Australian race that's not one of the UTMB races.
01:54:01
Speaker
um So, yeah. They got it on GPT. It's probably very Australian iconic, but um this race is yeah pretty iconic. Yeah, I think it the it would not be a route that probably people would ever think of, sort of Buffalo to the, or Bright to the Horn, but it's ah it's a really special route. it's it's Yeah, something about that, like... we goinging Race to the top. I know a lot of people love that idea and in terms of mountain running and VK running and that sort of stuff. And it's yeah it's like a long version of that.
01:54:29
Speaker
It's pretty cool. it's Of all the 100Ks in Australia, it's the one I i want to do the most. um it just you're Like you said, there's something about it. um I don't think you can see the horn from the start line because the hills would be in the way.
01:54:42
Speaker
You could probably see it from about halfway. Once you get into the valley maybe, into Buckland Valley. you Once you get up to clear spot, you can see it. Okay, you'd be able see it. And it would look a long way away from there. A really long way away. Even just if you look across to the chalet, like that looks like a long way away. And when you're in the chalet, you still got another like 20K or 15K, whatever it is, it gets to get to the horn.
01:55:05
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Picks, you take the women's Brody. Who have you got? I think it's hard to go past Fu Zhao, even if she doesn't run against and and race the the men. I think she's probably if she race the race, the female, she's probably be very hard to beat. So I'm going to have to put her in ah second. This is hard.
01:55:33
Speaker
ah I'd like to, it's not going out on a huge limb, but I i just think Ludo's going to have some fire in the belly. I'm going to go, i'm going to go and and I was very impressed with Ludo's runs both in roller coaster and the snowies race that she did run in the end, like over the shorter distance, putting down some serious pace and and knowing her,
01:55:55
Speaker
pedigree in the longer stuff in the past i think she's coming back to it potentially at a higher level it would just be whether there's been enough time i'm not sure but i'm gonna i'm gonna say ludo and then i'm gonna say variety temple just beats out nicole sorry i wanted to mention nicole Yeah,
01:56:13
Speaker
I'm going to go Fuzel for first, then I've got Bridie, and then I've got Ludo. Cool. Same people, just different order. And then in order in the men's, I actually found this one really, really tricky. um I might be getting a bit swept up in the the George Knight kind of enthusiasm and fanboy nature, and at some point, he has to miss.
01:56:38
Speaker
Yeah. But it hasn't happened for a while. So maybe this is the one and maybe that bit of extra pressure, a bit of extra attention does prove to make him make some decisions that he wouldn't normally do or run for different reasons. But having heard the stories about him running at Razorback and giggling behind Mikey Dunstan, I don't think that's going to happen yet. So I've got George Knight to take the win, Man Kumar to come second and Ben Butler to take third. Damn.
01:57:02
Speaker
There you go. I'm going to go with Man Kumar first. And I agree. I don't think George Knight's going to miss just yet. I think he's still got it. I reckon he'll get it. But yes, it is a bit of a hype train. Hopefully it continues.
01:57:16
Speaker
And third, i'm now that we've had this big training chat and I've looked at Godfrey's training so much, I'm going to back you in, Godfrey. Please get the third place for me. Or even better if you want. Go higher. Go higher. Go higher. i I do think like he clearly, he's got the pedigree already over the 100K distance. I think he came came from the triathlon world before that. was either a cyclist or triathlete. And that Bel Air marathon time in the middle of a training block is is very impressive. So yeah I think that he probably comes in without excluding, because we have no idea whatsoever about Man Kumar. He definitely would come in as the fastest athlete and probably would have the most quite capacity over terrain. So yeah, I do think, I think it's going to be
01:58:01
Speaker
If going to be very close, Mike, yeah, I'm to shut up. I'm going around in circles here. Cool. It's very easy to do. You just kind of keep thinking about it and looking at it and going, oh I've made the right decision there. um Beautiful. So as you can tell from listening to this, as in another two hour preview, there's a lot a lot of people in this field.
01:58:20
Speaker
it's it's great It's great to see. like i i know i get I get very excited when we start looking at these lists and it's going 10 people deep on the men and the women's side and we're seeing some of the most
Audience Engagement & Predictions
01:58:32
Speaker
competitive names. It makes makes our jobs a lot harder, but in a good way.
01:58:35
Speaker
Yeah, and we did say we're going to be more concise and we have probably failed. and Yeah, that was that was my goal when we came on was that, okay, this is this isn't going to take two hours and it took two hours. Yeah.
01:58:47
Speaker
Oh, well, hopefully if you stuck around with us to here, you have enjoyed that. um If you completely disagree with us, which happens quite a lot, because we don't really get this very right as much as we do try to not suck. um let Let us know. we We're definitely keen. if If you're with us on Patreon, which thank you for everyone who has signed up so far.
01:59:04
Speaker
comment on this have bit back and forth yeah least put your picks up as well i'd love to hear it yeah we'd love to hear those picks um see yeah i'm i'm curious we could we could we could start a uh an a no like no financial commitment but uh give it bring ah other people in like a little peak pursuits i reckon a little tipping a little yeah fantasy tipping in in in the patreon could be quite good It could be quite fun. Don't don't don't expect a full build out. Don't hold us to it. here But please share your tips.
01:59:34
Speaker
Yeah. definite Or in anywhere else on Instagram, Spotify. I'd love to be challenged. So hit me up with your picks. Yeah, definitely. And if we've missed you out and you you want to let let us know that, especially afterwards, um but I would give you a lot of credit if you told us beforehand. You werere like, oh, you've missed me. I'm going to win. Yeah.
01:59:52
Speaker
Again, let us know. I'd love to hear that. Brody, it's been fun. I do like these shows. It's it's good to you it's good it's good have a chance to see what everyone's up to as well. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, it's good. right. Thanks, James. Thanks, Brody. Thanks, everyone everyone, for listening. We'll catch you next time.
02:00:07
Speaker
Gotcha.