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Episode 23: French living, and the Mental Side of Running Injuries and Body Image.
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Welcome to Episode 23 of Peak Pursuits, your ultimate podcast for everything trail running in Australia. This week’s episode is hosted by Jess Jason, Brodie Nankervis and Maddy Reynolds! This ep was a bit of a struggle with internet connections in Albania for Brodie but the team brings you updates from Maddy and Jess, a great discussion on mentally dealing with injuries that evolves into a discussion of body image, and as usual all the results from the week.
Start - 26:00 :-Training Talk
Hear an update of what Maddy has been up to since we last spoke to her post OCC and her struggles with biking in France, including a discussion about the how and when to return to different types of training after bigger races as Jess and Maddy both currently are.
26:00 - 50:15 :- Listener Question Gone Wonderfully Rogue (content warning - body image)
The team answers a listener question about mentally dealing with injuries, and in doing so Jess and Maddy open up on the much needed discussion of body image in running, fueling, and the things they have had to deal with in relation to theses to get to where they are today.
50:15 - 58:00 :- Race Results
We then cover the Aussie results at GTWS and a couple of Aussie races that went down over the weekend:
Headlands 27km GTWS: https://my.raceresult.com/300132/results
Pilliga Ultra: https://tempus.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16516&RId=385&EId=2
Mighty Jarrah Half Marathon: https://bluechipresults.com.au/results.aspx?CId=11&RId=1764&EId=6
58:00 - End : What’s coming up
Lastly, we do a quick run through of the upcoming trail races around the country and what is coming up for us.
Thanks for tuning in to Peak Pursuits! Connect with us on Instagram @peakpursuits.pod to share your thoughts, questions, and your own trail stories. Until next time, keep hitting the trails and chasing those peak pursuits!
Jess: @jess.jason95
Brodie: @brodie_nank
Maddy: @maddyreynolds98
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter
License code: K08PMQ3RATCE215R
Cover image by @tonywithasony
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
�� Hello and welcome to the 23rd episode of the Pete the Shoots Podcast. My name is Brody and I'm coming to you live from the mountains in Albania. And today I'm joined by one of our regular hosts, Jess Jason. I just spent her first week in the ah warm capital of Australia. How are you going Jess? I'm good. It's not so warm here, but slowly adjusting.
00:00:38
Speaker
Canberra life in Canberra weather. Beauty, beauty. And because we're missing two of our regular hosts, we've got ah the crowd favourite we'll call her, our French correspondent, Maddie Reynolds, back on. Hey, Maddie, how are you going? Hey, Brody, I'm really well, thanks. um I love chatting to you the first time, so it's really cool to be back on the pod. Thanks for having me. We thought that you were probably better than all of us at hosting, so we should get you back on.
00:01:07
Speaker
Ah well, it's nice to hear the first one who was well received. It was a lot of fun chatting with you guys. Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on at late notice as well um and interrupting your beautiful day and in back in France now. Is that right? Yes, I am back in France. I'm in my little mountain hut in the Pyrenees. um The weather has been a bit funky though recently. Like we had some snow the other day and now it's really hot and sunny. So I'm getting sunburned sitting outside recording this, but um it is nice to be home. It was a ah long couple of of months traveling and
00:01:45
Speaker
um getting ready for OCC. So it's nice to kind of settle back into a bit more of a normal routine now and unwind a bit. Yeah, definitely. And now I guess we can start with you. When you say home, where where are you and you set a hut in the Pyrenees? Is that where you're living? Or like, where's but what's your location? What's your setup?
00:02:04
Speaker
So I am living with um my boyfriend Bass, and he has a housemate um called Hugo. um And before I moved in, it was just the two of them. it's um It basically is a mountain hut. um It's the tiniest place ever. Our bedroom literally just fits our little double bed, and that's it.
00:02:25
Speaker
um and It's located in a little village close to a town called Luchon in the Pyrenees. so That's the mountain range down south of um France, pretty much on the border of where Spain is. Bass and I will do runs really frequently, and I'll get a notification on my phone saying,
00:02:47
Speaker
welcome to spain and Um, so yeah, we're we're literally on the border, but it's the most beautiful area. Like all of our runs are up on, um, really nice mountains and we live at a decently high altitude at 1300 meters. So it's good spot for training too. Yeah, cool. And you get it maybe like some very slow altitude gains over a long period of time, I guess if you're staying there. So that's yeah, cool. Nice. Cool place to live.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah, it is it is pretty sweet. I don't think it gets much better. The only part that I'm finding a little bit tricky about it is that it is quite isolated, um yeah which is very different from what I have come from, obviously, being in Sydney. It's a big town, well, big city with a lot of hustle and bustle around the CBD, and it's been a bit of an adjustment not having at least a little bit of a village feel around. But um I think that's also what's so beautiful about the mountains, right? Like it's kind of just you and, I mean, the cows as it was this morning on my hike in the cows. yeah um But yeah, it's a ah ah really nice way to settle into my new life in France. Yeah, cool. Cool.
00:04:10
Speaker
All right. Well, do you maybe want to go through what you've been up to over the last week or maybe since we spoke to you last after OCC? And then we'll go from there.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the last time I spoke to you I was actually in Mallorca. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I was on a little bit of a holiday with some friends um who came and joined me after OCC, and that was awesome. That was the best way to unwind. There was a lot of sangrias and a lot of tapas.
00:04:42
Speaker
um So it was a nice way to chill after kind of the massive build up to OCC. um And then after that, I was actually planning on joining Sim at Font Remo.
00:04:55
Speaker
We were going to go to a training camp there together, but my luggage got lost on my flight from Mallorca to Barcelona. So I arrived in Barcelona and literally had nothing, like and not a pair of running shoes, not a change of undies, like literally nothing.
00:05:14
Speaker
So I called Sim and I was like, I'm so sorry, I don't think I can come because I i literally have no kit with me. So those plans got cancelled pretty quickly and I came back to um the Pyrenees straight away instead of going to join Sim.
00:05:30
Speaker
um And then training was going well. like i I felt like I recovered very well from OCC. um My body felt really good. Mentally, I was feeling pretty keen to get back into training. um I think OCC just made me feel really motivated and inspired. I saw all the athletes and it made me really keen to um train for my next race coming up, which is Le Tomplier in October.
00:05:58
Speaker
um yeah matt so I was slowly building back into that and then I was doing a cycle on an e-bike with Bass and i I am so clumsy on the bike. like it's It's actually embarrassing. I don't think I've gone for a bike ride once yet where I haven't fallen over at least once.
00:06:23
Speaker
I am terrified of cleats and I keep stacking it every time I wear cleats but this time I actually wasn't wearing cleats. um I was just turning around a corner and I think I clipped the wheel on a bit of the pavement in a weird funky angle and the bike slipped from underneath me and I crashed my knee on the ground and then the e-bike fell on top of my knee bone and the e-bike weighs a ton because it's obviously got like yeah the motor in it.
00:06:52
Speaker
So I bashed up my knee pretty badly and i I can't run. Like it's been a week now and I can still barely put any weight on it. yeah So my my trainings looked a bit a bit unconventional this week, um but I think that also makes me really appreciate where I'm living at the moment because you can't run, but there are so many beautiful places to cycle. um Yeah, nice. And actually the Tour de France, when it was on earlier this year, cycled right past our mountain hut.
00:07:27
Speaker
So yeah yeah, we've got like the best cycling routes around the Pyrenees for it. Um, and it's kind of cool cause I'm cycling along the roads and there's still all of the chalk that, um, spectators have written being like, go pokey, like cheering on, um, different cyclists. So it's kind of cool as I'm riding, I'm seeing all of the little cheering signs and I'm kind of like telling myself it's okay. You nearly at the top of the hill. Yeah.
00:07:56
Speaker
That's awesome. That's cool. It's frustrating about the knee. I think like those injuries are always the most frustrating because there's not so much your error that led to them. And and they can sometimes put you out for a short time, which can be frustrating. But like you said, it's good to soak up the other opportunities of doing some more cycling, I guess, a bit of hiking.
00:08:18
Speaker
I don't know about you, but I think if I get injured running, it's almost a little bit more validating because you're injured training. So it feels like there's a purpose behind it. yeah Whereas getting injured in a way where it has nothing to do with your training and it's totally relevant. It's just like a stupid clumsy mistake where you're not thinking and you lose focus for a little bit. It's, it's really frustrating.
00:08:41
Speaker
yeah ye Hopefully it's not too bad. inna Are you going to bother to get like a scan or anything? I think I will if it's still not better in a week because then it will be two weeks that it's been injured. Yeah. um Sometimes these bangs just take like a good week to settle down and then they sort they come good really quickly. So hopefully it's like that. Yeah. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Okay. So a bit of an up and down week, but yeah, I saw some of your, um,
00:09:14
Speaker
um some of your cycles I think on on Strava and they look really cool. So it's good to get out on the bike. Good place to be when you can't run. Oh, and you can still get mad fitness gains from cycling. like the The incline of some of these roads, oh, it's rough. They're so steep. I don't know if you guys have watched any of the Tour de France before, but I think having now cycled the roads myself, it really puts into perspective how amazing those cyclos are. Because they're going like...
00:09:49
Speaker
2030k up these steep hills. and it's I don't know how they do it. It's crazy. I'm doing like 10 kilometres up the hill and I'm struggling and gasping for air. i yeah it It really puts into perspective what the elite cyclists are doing you know i think that's with any sport you can watch it on tv and you don't really grasp quite the level of difficulty of it i think it's it looks so much easier on tv yeah and then doing it yourself it puts you into perspective just how hard it is like trail running is the same you watch like the utmb clips online of
00:10:28
Speaker
the top athletes and it looks easy and then you go out and do the same trail and it's like oh my gosh this feels like I'm doing a different sport to these guys. yeah Did you bring a bike from Sydney? I did, I did. It came all the way over from Sydney. um I was very lucky and when I got to the airport they were wanting to charge me $1,000 to bring the bike over And I don't know how I managed to do this, but I managed to um convince the air hostess to let my bike on for free. So I got very lucky. Wow.
00:11:13
Speaker
And I didn't think I would use it as much as I have used it, but I basically almost used it every day. um Even in the build up to OCC, it was really, really handy just as a good way to get um like more cardio fitness without having to um have so much impact through more mileage running. it's but yeah It's been a really good way to do low impact training um because at the beginning of the year, I was really badly injured with a stress fracture as well. so I had to be very conservative with how I built up to OCC. so The bike was my best friend.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think especially but you see a lot of the pros who have a lot of time doing extra trainings on the bike, because they've got they've got extra time, but they don't want to do more ah loading, running, loading. a Yeah. And you're one of the pros now, Maddie. So you've got to train a lot of the pros. I'm all show and no go. I definitely look the part on the bike, but I definitely don't go very far. ah That's amazing. You're just going to look good.
00:12:23
Speaker
he Jess, what have you been up to this week? You've come off the back of Hounslow and moving into sort of getting settled in Canberra as well. Yeah, um yeah I was pretty banged up after Hounslow to be honest. um I didn't, yeah, I just sort of like went for walks and did like a little bit of yoga and I was staying in a hotel so I got access to a sauna so I was doing like sauna every night and the pool was like an outdoor pool with no cover on so it was basically like an ice bath. I got like an ice bath and a sauna for free every night so that was pretty good for the recovery. um And then Thursday I went for like just a 30 minute swim um which I could still feel that I was just like so tired because it was such an effort to just I don't know just exercise.
00:13:20
Speaker
um I think like just yeah yeah being like banged up from the race but also like the stress of the like move and like running around doing stuff like didn't really help with the energy levels. so I was sort of happy to like really just take a week almost completely off running. I didn't do my first job until Saturday.
00:13:43
Speaker
So I met up with Charlie and Mikey over here, part of the Canberra crew. The Canberra Cowboys, I think they're called. um And yeah, we just met up oh near Black Mountain and did I think like 45 minutes. Super chill. Got to see my new loafing trails, which is pretty fun.
00:14:07
Speaker
um And then Sunday, I headed out to Isaac's Ridge, which is sort of south, about 20 minutes south of Canberra. um So I went down there with Jess Freinen and a couple of the girls that she trains with. And one of their, like, Labrador cross Kelpie, who did the whole 17K run with us, which I was pretty impressed by, super fit dog.
00:14:37
Speaker
um So yeah that was like 17k with 600 meters of elevation gain so um yeah by that stage I was feeling a lot better like my body was feeling pretty recovered. I felt like pretty tired energy wise after that so I think that was sort of like um Yeah, like good that I didn't like overdo it too much. um And yeah, Monday was another rest day and today I jogged again and I'll probably just jog for the rest of this week and then I'll get stuck back into sort of normal training next week. Cool. And you've got how many weeks now until the Asia Pacific chance? Is it another five weeks? Roughly or four weeks? Yeah, i think I think it's five. Yeah.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's not until like my race isn't until the 25th of October. So yeah, I think it's like five weeks. Yeah, I think it's like when when where you are at like sort of mid-season and had a big race and then another big race coming, it's a good idea to like not not fall into the trap of rushing back into sessions and yeah too much running. So I think it was good that you listened to your body in the week.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm just still, like, I don't know, scarred from not making the start line at Worlds, so I'm gonna do everything I can to make that start line and not get injured in the lead up. So I think, like, the fitness that I would have gained from Hounslow will outweigh, like, me sort of jumping back into training too early. um So I think, yeah.
00:16:17
Speaker
I'll probably be able to fit in like maybe three weeks of sort of bigger training volume and then I'll have to like take her off again. But yeah, I'm not too concerned about losing fitness or anything. I think maybe I think it'll be good. I'd be interested to know how you guys both get back into kind of like a training routine after a big race like that. I've been absorbing quite a lot of um like information and listening to a lot of podcasts about how athletes bounce back from UTMB or OCC and those kind of races. and A lot of research
00:16:57
Speaker
seems to suggest that the first thing that you need to do is get back into like shorter, faster sessions rather than go back out for a two-hour long run. um and I think there the rationale behind it, from what I understand,
00:17:13
Speaker
is that during your taper into a big race like that, you kind of like stop doing speed sessions. um And so your speed is kind of the first thing that drops off. um And then when you're when you're building back up, um like you were saying Jess, you've kind of like banked up all of that fitness. So your endurance kind of is the thing that maintains constant throughout the entire process. But i you lose speed faster than you lose endurance. So there's a few podcasts that I've been listening to where these people were saying that, um and it's not necessarily you having to do super hard, fast sessions, I'm not saying that, but they're more saying that
00:18:02
Speaker
you know you don't need to get back to your three hour long runs quite as quickly as maybe doing um a ah a short speed session in maybe the two weeks after you've done a big race. Do you guys normally get back into some sort of speed work quite quickly or do you more so get back into doing long runs before that? I think my stance, there's a few things in that, but like yeah, it's a really good point. The the first thing that you're going to lose a speed, like from a detraining point of view, that's the first thing that you will lose if you completely stop training. And and therefore, a little bit in your taper, you're going to start losing it. Not enough to affect you by race day, but in the weeks after you'll start to feel that maybe affecting your running. And it's not so much you're working on your speed to use within a race, but it's more
00:18:57
Speaker
working on your speed to be able to to get ah to get the benefits from that sort of session. So that sort of sort of speed session, not necessarily hard, but aiming to run fast is working on your sort of neuromuscular capabilities. So how quickly the message gets through to the muscles, how efficient you are, and that sort of stuff, because then that will then benefit your other training once you get back into the rest of it. so Like that's a, that's a training principle in itself. But yes, like you said, after a race, that's, that's pretty important. Um, I even saw this year, uh, Anders who was on the podcast and he ran chemo on the same day as me. And then he was running CCC the next weekend because he's a crazy person. oh michael Um, but he, in the day, I think it was the day after chemo or two days after chemo, he did a half an hour run with six by 10 seconds. And then the next day he did.
00:19:53
Speaker
another half an hour 40 minute run with six by 15 seconds or something. So he was starting to try and work on that speed probably as a way of getting his legs moving again as well. But I think it's like it's that it doesn't have to be it's these sort of speed sessions are not necessarily hard and they're not necessarily going to like make you really fatigued um after they might feel hard in the moment but they don't feel you don't you don't necessarily get sore or something after that. And you should go build up how much speed you're doing in a session. You shouldn't go the first session back. You shouldn't do what you were doing in the final three, four weeks, because that would be too much load. um But it's just about getting the system moving again, I think. For me personally, i I've used it a little bit, but often my Achilles in the last
00:20:41
Speaker
Year has been an issue, so and speed is a bit of an issue for the Achilles. So injuries aside, I think it's a good idea, but you've got to consider what your body's like as well. So I haven't used it extensively, but when I set my athletes training programs, speed is always a feature of the early blocks. What about you, Jess? Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I respond pretty well.
00:21:06
Speaker
um to the speed. like i feel like yeah yeah I agree that's the first thing that you lose if you don't keep it up. so yeah I think I'm going to get stuck back into some track sessions next week with one of the groups over here.
00:21:27
Speaker
and then Yeah, I think like getting in the long runs is also important because like it's probably the most specific run um to the race that I'm doing. So I probably will like aim to put a little bit of effort in into those long runs so that I'm sort of practicing that like more steady effort over a longer period of time.
00:21:57
Speaker
I think that's a good idea as well, the fact that sort of start building that back in. I think the other thing with speed, I was just thinking is like, it doesn't have to be a track session. Track session is good. It can be like hill sprints or it can even be like drills and some strides is also a good ah good sort of introduction. So it's sort of just working on moving the body fast. And hills can sometimes be a way to do it with lower load if you're walking down.
00:22:25
Speaker
because you're not actually running as fast. um So that can be sometimes a good one for people who don't want to put like high impact forces on. You can do some hills instead of tra but tracks also. Like if you're doing, as long as you don't do like huge volume, then it's also good. Yeah, totally. Actually, hill sprints are what I was doing quite a lot for OCC because it was more so specific training for the type of terrain as well. I think that's really useful. um that It's a useful tool that trail runners can use um to try and practice speed on terrain that's going to be more suited to what you'll be actually racing on. um I guess that's a question for you, Jess. like Do you know what the terrain will be like in
00:23:15
Speaker
um your race in Korea and how are you kind of trying to base your long runs around the terrain that you're going to get in in um Korea? um Yeah I've heard that it's pretty similar to Hanseo with like quite a lot of stairs so yeah I've been told that there's a good long run around Bread Hill which is kind of like a local trail that has some stairs so I think I'll get Jess Ronan to show me around her neck of the woods. And then I've heard of a couple of other um good trails that have like long climbs. I think it's Stockyards and Mount Tennant maybe. um So I'll probably head out there maybe with a couple of the guys and yeah, they suggested those ones as a good um way to like practice the longer climbs and descents.
00:24:13
Speaker
that will be in the race at South Korea. Yeah, no, I think that's that's good. I think from what I've seen of Korea, it's going to be some ah more longer, like you said, longer climbs and then big descents, sort of like three or four over the course of the, maybe three, four, five big climbs over the course of the race. Yeah. have you Have you heard the same thing about there being stairs?
00:24:38
Speaker
I think i've seen've I've seen some pictures of it. I think there is some stairs. Yeah. How did you find the stairs at Honslow? Oh my god. They're definitely like a different ball game. Like, I don't know, just like so hard on the legs, especially going down them. Because you can't do like the smaller steps that kind of save your legs. Like they're just these big leaps and you're just like, after a while, I feel like your ankles and your knees are just like getting so sore. Yeah, that sounds rough. There's not that many stairs in European trail racing. That's the only positive, but it's very technical. So I'm not sure what's better. Yeah, I didn't mind like the ascents of stairs as well because they sort of force you to just hike it.
00:25:30
Speaker
So I found that like by the time you get to the top, but because you just hiked all the way, it was sort of easier to like run off the climb because you've used that different muscles. Yeah, it's always the stairs going downhill that I think are the hardest on your quads. It's just brutally, like with all the jarring going down as well. Then it just makes going uphill so sore as well. Yeah, definitely.
00:25:56
Speaker
um Sorry, guys. It looks like we've lost Brody. He's just having some internet troubles and his power went out over in Albania. So it's just Maddie and I for the rest of the episode. So next we'll move on to the listener question that we have. And the question that was sent through from Leigh Christic was, how do you deal with the mental struggles that come with injuries and setbacks during a block?
00:26:24
Speaker
um Maddie, I'll let you answer that one first. This is actually a question that's pretty close to my heart as um earlier this year I had a big injury that resulted in a very long setback. um I had just come off winning the 50k at Kosciuszko in December and was feeling really good. i was on a training camp over the summer holidays with my squad back home um called Run Crew. we were
00:26:57
Speaker
doing a big training block in the Blue Mountains. So we did three weeks of um basically living up in the Jenolan Caves at high altitude or high altitude for Sydney. um And throughout the entire training camp, I felt awesome, like was logging some really big miles um and felt super fit. I had a lot of really fun races that I was looking forward to coming out of that training camp.
00:27:25
Speaker
um Golden Trails series was coming to Sydney or coming to Australia for the first time. And I was planning on hitting all those races um and also doing um uta the 50K UTA. And then about a week after coming back from the training block, I was doing just an everyday run in the Blue Mountains on a Sunday with my squad. um We were doing a 30K loop around Glenbrook.
00:27:58
Speaker
And about 20k into the run I started to get a bit of a sharp pain in my heel and it just kind of got progressively worse. I probably should have stopped but we were doing a loop so like I couldn't actually stop the loop until I circled all the way back otherwise I would have just kind of been stranded in the middle of the Glenbrook Forest which wasn't ideal.
00:28:23
Speaker
So I finished the run um and the next morning I woke up with the worst pain in my heel. Like it felt as though someone had a knife and was just shoving it up my heel. um So I went and saw a podiatrist who said that I should get an MRI and it turned out that I had a pretty big stress fracture in my calcaneus which is your heel bone.
00:28:52
Speaker
um which is not really a common place where you'd expect to get a stress fracture like you expect your heels to be a pretty sturdy bone at least I did um but it meant that I had to go on crutches for two weeks and then after that I was in a moon boot for six weeks And then the recovery back to running was so, so slow. It was like, walk for one minute, um run for 30 seconds, and then slowly getting back into a, now you can walk for two minutes and run for one minute. um So it was just mentally really, really tough.
00:29:33
Speaker
a tough moment and I think it's it's hard as well when you're coming from a place of feeling really fit I think that's when injuries always happen right like I don't know if you have the same experience Jess but I always feel like I get injured when I'm on the cusp of being super super fit and that's when you're always at the biggest risk of getting injured um and that's unfortunately what happened to me Are you the sort that um like follows the return to run to a tee or do you like struggle to get back into it slowly? I followed it pretty closely actually. um Well, I followed the the actual running component of it quite closely so I didn't go beyond what my coach was prescribing with the actual running part.
00:30:19
Speaker
But I think I probably overdid it with um trying to maintain cross training in the gym, um which in hindsight wasn't very smart because I think that also when your body's recovering from an injury, um it's obviously using all of the energy in your system to put into the recovery process as well to try try and heal the bone.
00:30:45
Speaker
And I think I probably got a little bit carried away with cross training in the gym and tried to maintain fitness because I was very worried that my fitness would go down. um So yeah coming out of the injury, I was super, super fit still. But I think that almost made my return to running more frustrating because I felt fit, but my body wasn't able to like ah the conditioning I'd lost was quite significant. So I was getting sore from doing like, I don't know, 20 minute runs and.
00:31:25
Speaker
I think if I'd allowed myself to just go through the entire process of losing fitness and coming back into it naturally, it would have been mentally a little bit easier. um But a yeah coping mechanism that I used to mentally deal with the injury was to just find something else over that period of time that gave me just as much joy as what running did.
00:31:51
Speaker
um And so i i I think I was lucky with the timing of when I got injured. I got injured over Australian summer, so it was really nice and warm outside. um And i I found a ah challenge called the Starlight Swim um Foundation Challenge.
00:32:09
Speaker
So it was basically you had to try and um so you had to set a goal as to how many kilometres you wanted to swim over the month of February and raise funds for working towards your goal. So that actually really helped mentally because I was able to completely forget about running for a while. I removed all the races that I had planned on my training program, got rid of all of them, and just set my goal on trying to swim. i My goal was 85 kilometers over the month of February. um And having another goal to work towards that was totally unrelated to running really, really helped from ah from a mental perspective. It gave me something else to work towards. And it actually made me really like swimming.
00:32:57
Speaker
which I used to assume a lot as a kid but um I totally stopped doing it and now I'm not doing it again now that I'm back running but yeah I think having something else to focus your mental energy towards really helped Yeah, like I've had quite a few stress fractures and like when um when I was younger, like I found it really, really hard like mentally to stop running. Cause I think like a lot of runners, especially like sort of ones that have been in the sport for a while, like they've experienced that kind of like, like work hard culture that's been like driven in. um Well, a lot of like girls that I sort of met,
00:33:41
Speaker
throughout my running journey experience that um from a young age. So I think that sort of makes you feel like having, you know, like one or two days off running is just like, and like it's a disaster. So like having to have like four to six weeks off with the stress fracture was just like totally devastating when I was younger. But what I think I learned with H1 and as I got older was that like,
00:34:09
Speaker
You just can't treat running as like the be all and end all. And that comes down to like what you're saying, like finding something else that gives you those endorphins, like whether it's yeah getting into swimming, like doing something amazing for charity, like raising money, going out for like cycling if you can, cycle with your injury.
00:34:32
Speaker
just finding something else and like I think like trying to still get outside. like I think if you are like really hyper focused on keeping that fitness and you like you just go on the elliptical every day, like I just don't think that that's gonna help mentally. like Yeah, I think like getting outside is super important for Keeping up the serotonin levels um and yeah not putting too much emphasis on like maintaining fitness. like Just rolling with it. like You're going to lose fitness. You've got to accept that. I think that's like the first sort of thing you have to do like mentally. Just accept that like this is what's happened and you're going to lose fitness. but
00:35:17
Speaker
you're going to learn so many lessons from it and that you're going to go through a journey where you'll become a better runner ultimately. Um, so yeah, I think that's, that's sort of how I learned to get through all the stress fractures that I've had just like, yeah, reframing the injury mentally and, um, focusing on other things in life. Yeah, I think... Brodie, I think... injury... Oh, he's back.
00:35:45
Speaker
Hello. Yeah, sorry. I've just been listening. We're just talking about injuries, Brody, but i was I was just about to say that I think the injury for me with my stress fracture was also a bit of a wake-up call into what my mental attitude to running really was all about.
00:36:04
Speaker
um This is probably getting quite personal, but i I started running over COVID and I think my initial reason to start running was related ah a lot to body image. um It was a way for, it was, yes, a way for me to socialize and get outside, but it was also a way for me to maintain a certain physique and body shape over a period where I felt like there was no other way for me to exercise.
00:36:35
Speaker
And so having the injury and not having the ability to do the one thing that kind of was what was keeping me mentally stable in the first place, um I found really hard. And I think the injury actually made me realize that I was sometimes running for the wrong reasons. um I was sometimes running to try and look a certain way or to lose weight or um You know because I'd eaten a certain number of calories and I wanted to burn it off I think Not being able to rely on running for that reason when I came back to running I felt like I was in a much healthier place with it and I was truly running now for the enjoyment of running rather than ah I've eaten a muffin and I need a I need to burn off the calories that I've eaten from the muffin I think
00:37:35
Speaker
Sometimes it takes an injury that restricts you from doing that thing that could potentially be toxic but you just don't realize that it's toxic until you can't actually do it anymore and you need to come up with different mechanisms.
00:37:50
Speaker
um So I think being forced to step away from that um Yeah, made me come back to running with a much healthier attitude towards it. Now just running purely for the enjoyment and like being out in nature and loving what I'm doing and loving the places that I'm able to explore and see and not just doing it from like a really toxic mental um approach. I think a lot of people who got into running over COVID didn't necessarily start running because there was performance benefits from it. They started running for maybe other reasons, which is like like I said, what I got into it for. Now it has obviously become very performance driven and i I run because I want to get faster and um you know work my way up the trail running world.
00:38:49
Speaker
But I think maybe sometimes it takes an injury for you to change your attitude towards something. I don't know if you've had a similar experience, Jess. I don't know if your injuries were kind of related in that way. I think my injury, looking back on it, was definitely caused by under fuelling and um yeah not prioritising that enough. And I think that's so important as females as well. I think there are where at even more of a risk of developing um stress fractures and injuries from from not fueling correctly. And sometimes it can actually even be that you just don't have the information and you're not well equipped to know what you have to do. um That's another issue of coming into definitely endurance running as an amateur and not really knowing what you're doing.
00:39:41
Speaker
um And you're just like I didn't have a coach when I started running I was just doing it myself and organizing my own training runs and You don't really understand how much you've got to be fueling your body um When you're doing long-distance stuff like that um So it's very easy for it to just turn into a spiral of um Yeah, just it all kind of spiraling out of control very easily which I think it did for me um Yeah, 100%. Yeah, like I had a ah very similar um experience. I think I've been running for probably a few more years and you like I started like right back from Little A's. And so like my
00:40:30
Speaker
focus on running has always been performance in a way like on the track started out on the track and then eventually got into road running but um like the culture back then was just so uninformed like just the comments that I like like that are still stuck in my head it's just wild that people used to say things like, oh, like, your belly's too soft when I, like, back when I was 18, like, I got comments like that from my coach and um she would say, like, you need to do more crunches to, like, get your belly flat and, like, she would say, you can't eat sweet potato because it's got too many carbs. um She would say, like, she would go over yeast because this is when we were back in Perth, she'd go over yeast for a
00:41:20
Speaker
junior nationals and um come back and be like oh all of the athletes over there they don't have rest days and like talking down to us because we're having rest days and like you can't really blame them because it's that's what they were taught certain and that was like the approach to running back then um and it's like I think we've come a long way since then like um what you're saying, like um like I think a lot of women are like realizing how much we actually need to fuel as um endurance athletes, like whether we're elite or not, like the amount of food that we need to consume is way more than what society expects, I think.
00:42:05
Speaker
um And I think like if you have any sort of mindset that like you need to cut certain things out of your diet um to be thin for running, I think that's where you get into the trap of under-fueling. So I think you really yeah you really need to like lose that mindset. um ah sort of yeah That's what I had to do anyway. like as soon as i lost that mindset that I needed to be thin for running. That's when everything sort of started to click for me and I actually ran like a lot, a lot better. So fueling is so important. um And it's really sad like how many women have the same story, but um I guess like you've sort of got to take the positives from it. Like we're able to have chats like this now where we're like um like connecting through our experience and like informing others.
00:43:01
Speaker
and using like our injuries and learnings from our injuries to like help hopefully like the younger generation prevent them from going through the same thing. I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think it's really tricky when you look up to role models in the sport or people who you deem to be elite and you see only one sort of body shape as being the accepted norm of what is elite. and I guess when I started my running journey, I was looking up to a lot of
00:43:35
Speaker
um really elite marath road marathon runners particularly like you know Kenyans and Ethiopians and they're all quite lean and thin and they've got beautiful long legs and I think it's very easy to picture that one body shape and automatically think well they're elite so that's what I need to look like to be able to get to that level but I think that's why trail running is so beautiful because genuinely I think there is different body shapes at every different level. I don't see like one particular body shape and think, oh, well, that person's got to be elite because they look that way. I think it's almost the opposite. You know, you can see some really strong, powerful women who are so talented and doing so well at the sport. So I don't think there is a one
00:44:27
Speaker
size fits all molds as much in trail running and I think that's been really beneficial from at least like the way that I visualise the sport and to help me overcome that sort of mental side of it. um my My coach was explaining it to me, he was saying that you know the the training is kind of one aspect But that the running is one aspect of your training. And if you're doing all of this hard running and training so well, but you're not fueling yourself properly, you're almost trait training with the handbrake on. And I agree with you, I think once I've started fueling myself better,
00:45:09
Speaker
um I've noticed that I've been starting i'm I'm running so much better. I've got so much more energy for everyday life Like not even from a running perspective just like I'm a better human in general I have more energy to chat to people and be friends and you have fun outside of running I think that's the cool side of it as well. Just feeling like you've got more energy in the day to do other things It's Yeah a hundred percent um Brody, what about you? What are your, I guess, like going back to the listener question, what sort of strategies have you used to sort of mentally get through injuries? Because I know you've had your fair share and you did sort of experience like a bout of underfuelling that led to a stress. sea Yeah. So what's yeah's your experience?
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, I was just going to say, like and I think we strayed off the question a little bit. But like what you what you two have been talking about is like so valuable and so important. And like I know it definitely affects women more, um but it also affects men. It affects all of us. So it is such an important topic to cover. um like I myself, like I've been a runner my entire life, and I still didn't have the knowledge that I now possess. And I feel like a lot more people are starting to possess around fueling. And that led me down the same track, like I've been where you guys have been, maybe not ah quite as, um I've had like the one stress fracture and I haven't had to deal with the the things that you've had to deal with with coaches and that sort of stuff. But mine was more of that, what Maddie was talking about in terms of seeing that one body shape that you think is, that is what performance looks like. And in reality, it's not.
00:46:51
Speaker
um And I think like Maddie said, in trail running, seeing all of the varied body types has been massive for me as well, because fueling was a massive part of why I ended up with a stress fracture. So yeah, I think it's, that's a super important conversation. If we, if we come back to the question, I guess, I think from what you guys have talked about, it's like, it's a bit of an evolving thing, like,
00:47:16
Speaker
you will learn to deal with injuries as you go along. To start with it can be quite hard um and you'll learn something out of that injury that then you can apply in the next one, um which sounds a little bit like what the journey that Maddie's been through and probably yourself as well Jess. But for me I think like it's super important to like I just try and think about like I think you're both referring to a little bit like running is not our life. Like it's a huge part of our life, but it's not our entire lives. So always coming back for me, it's always coming back to those important relationships I have in my life and going, well, I have to sacrifice these relationships a little bit when I'm running a lot. So this is the time when I need to, like, this is where I can make up for that. And so I can go a bit, I can, I can be a bit more involved in all of those relationships.
00:48:07
Speaker
at that time. So like when I had my stress fracture, I couldn't run for eight weeks. Luckily, I was getting married at the same time, around the same time. So that was a good distraction. But I just tried to reach out to friends that had been too busy to catch up with, um tried to, for me, it was not so much focusing on cross training and that sort of stuff. I just sort of went, okay, well, like I'm in this. I might as well enjoy the things that I struggled to do when I am running a lot.
00:48:35
Speaker
um And I think that made a big difference for me and helped me manage it. And then when I came back to running, I was really excited to get get back into some exercise. So for me, that seems to be how it works. For an injury that you have to have time off, that works. For me, the first tricky one is the injuries that you don't have to stop running. Trying to get that balance right is tricky from a mental point of view, knowing should I train, shouldn't I train. But that's more of a it's more of a coaching sort of rehab thing rather than a mental strategies, I think.
00:49:05
Speaker
But yeah, have you guys, I didn't hear if you talked about any specific sort of mental strategies you use or you will use next time? Yeah, we spoke about at the start, like, just like reframing your sort of mindset around running being the be all and end all and trying not to stress too much about losing fitness, like just accepting it and trying to focus on things that sort of make you happy, like Maddie,
00:49:33
Speaker
did the swimming to raise money for the charity. um And I just like going bike rides outside and try and get some outside time. Yeah, I think you just have to remember all those things that said because have to go training or because you were on a, you're being a bit strict because of the performance that you wanted to achieve and go, okay, well, I can do that. I can go and have a beer with my friends or go and have that sort of go out and have that meal that I didn't have time to do because I had training or, or whatever it is.
00:50:02
Speaker
I think relish those moments, because then when you get back into the training block again, you sort of will have less time for those things, so yeah. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think we should move on, maybe. I think, yeah, we definitely like went into um some good detail on that question, but yeah, it's such an important topic to talk about, so hopefully we answered your question, Lee, and thank you again for sending that in.
00:50:29
Speaker
um So jumping into the results from the wait, ah we'll start off with the Golden Trail World Series. Yes, so the Golden Trail Series um kicked off with the Headlands 27k, which kind of took place just minutes downtown from San Francisco, which um had about 1200 meters of elevation gain.
00:51:00
Speaker
I have never run around there, but from what I've seen of videos of the course, it looked epic. um I think it had a bit of everything. There was some fast fire road trail running.
00:51:13
Speaker
some super steep climbs, a lot of flowy single trail, um some really technical sections, ah lots of stunning views around the Bay Area and the Pacific Ocean and all of that. um But we had some some awesome Aussie results. A lot of Aussies raced actually, but the three results that we wanted to point out were Lara Hamilton, who placed 13th in two hours and 33 minutes and 47 seconds, which is an amazing result.
00:51:43
Speaker
um We had our very own Simone Brick as well who placed 28th in 2 hours 45 minutes and 15 seconds um and I believe Simone took a pretty nasty tumble as well so it is super impressive that she managed to pick herself up and continue running and finish that race.
00:52:04
Speaker
And then on the men's side, Nathan Pearce came in 37th in two hours and 20 minutes. So a really exciting weekend for the Aussies with the Golden Trail because those races attract some pretty stiff international competition. And I know a lot of very good US athletes were there as well. So very cool results from the Aussies. Yeah, definitely. It looks like a yeah fast course, but yeah, have the the competition was pretty deep in in both the men's and the women's, at least at the top end. So yeah, I think they're all pretty impressive runs. Cool. I think next we were going to cover the Pilliga Ultra. Yeah, I can take it to there. So yeah, over the weekend we had the Pilliga Ultra, which is um and believe us out in, I think it's the Pilliga National Park. I'm not sure if it's in National Park or not.
00:53:03
Speaker
but it's ah in New South Wales. um And I think this event is done as ah as a bit of an awareness razor, maybe also a fundraiser um for for Wild Places. um So it's a pretty cool event out there. And they had a 50K, a 20K and a 10K.
00:53:27
Speaker
in the 50K in the men we had first went to George Knight in 457.23 and then not far behind one of my teammates from Salomon, Tom Batruni in 501. I think Tom was maybe leading for most of the race, made a bit of a mistake, missed a turn, he said it was his own fault and then didn't quite have enough to bring it home.
00:53:53
Speaker
um Third was Jim Wise in 502.56, so it's pretty close for such a long race. In the women, sorry, just here, yep. So in the women, we had Eleanor Finch in 6 hours 44, Jenny Friend in 6 hours 46, 25, and third, Beck Cook in 7.05.09.
00:54:24
Speaker
So that was the 50K. In the 20K, we had in the females Tia Bull, 158, 24. O'Connor Murray Bartlett, so people might not have heard of O'Connor's name before. She was second into a 905. And third was Chloe Edie into 1501.
00:54:46
Speaker
um And it looks like Tia Bull was actually first over the line, both men and women, which is awesome. So fantastic running there, Tia. Because in the men, first place was Nick Adamson in 158.42. Second was Dan Price in 159.49. And third was Daniel Nash in 207.20. So that was Pillager Ultra. I think, Jess, you're going to take us to a race in WA.
00:55:14
Speaker
Yeah so um we also had the mighty Jarrah trail run over the weekend and we'll cover off the results in the 21k. So in the men we had Mike Carroll in first place um in one hour 22. And then second we had Stewie Caulfield in one hour 26 and third was Mitchell Clark in one hour 29.
00:55:44
Speaker
So yeah, pretty strong results from those men. um And then in the women, we had Petra, Jerry, Jen in first place, in one hour 41. And then second place, we had Alex, Bucky, Smith in one hour 43. And third place was Melica, Ben Croft in one hour 46. So well done to those ladies.
00:56:10
Speaker
oh And then we just had one other result. A few of the other trail races couldn't find results this week, um but we had the Sydney Marathon was ah on over the weekend um and Fraser Darcy, SA correspondent, and we're still claiming him as a trail runner, even though he's done probably more road running this year than trail running. He came second Australian in a PB and his time was two hours, 21, 35.
00:56:38
Speaker
and pretty fast and speedy time. Not the quickest course, I think it's hit me. So well done to Fraser. It's a good time and also awesome to come in second Australian. That course isn't too, too quick. Is that right, Matty?
00:56:50
Speaker
The course has actually got a decent amount of elevation in it, actually. I think they managed to find just about every hill that exists in the Sydney CBD and stick it in there. um so yeah It goes um like all around Oxford Street and up to Centennial Park and then loops back down where the um Opera House is, it does a bit of Brangaroo area as well. ah So I think it would have a similar elevation profile to ah something like the New York Marathon, I would say. um So very impressive time from from Fraser. That's a really awesome result. I think, like you were saying, here um would probably have been neck and neck with the top ah female who came in at around 2 hours and 20 minutes. so It would have been a cool pack of runners that he was um situated in to to um to run with as well. Very very strong pack of, um I believe the the top females were all um Africans as well. so um yeah an Awesome result from from Fraser.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah, maybe his trail running helped him on the on the hills as well. So so ah yeah, effort from Fraser. And I think that's all we have for results for this week. If you have any that you want covered or you see any any cool results anywhere, make sure you send them through and we can cover them in the in the episodes.
00:58:12
Speaker
um Next weekend we have the another round of the Golden Trail World Series over in the US, so it's the second US race. This time it's the Mammoth Lakes race. It's 26k with 1400 meters up and down and this one's like one big uphill and then one big downhill. So it would be interesting to see how that one goes. I think it's a lot of the same people who are at the first US running the first US race running the second one, including Simone's going to be running again, which is cool to see. I'm not sure if Lara's running. I don't think nathan's Nathan's running a different race. I'm not sure if Lara's running. We might see her again. um And I think there's a few of the international runners that we didn't see at the first race who are running. So I wonder if some of them have had ah see a bit more time off after maybe a race at UTMB or something like that. and
00:59:10
Speaker
are coming for the second race only. So the the field might even be deeper, I don't know. So it'd be interesting to see how that one plays out. um Domestically, there's lots going on across the country. um I'll just yell out a few that are happening. ah There's the Surf Coast Century down in Victoria, so that's always quite a popular race.
00:59:34
Speaker
um say That would be interesting to see how how how it goes. We've also got ah the Denmark half marathon over in WA. I'm not sure where that one is. It sounds nice. But um Ocean Beach, it says it is at. We also got the Great North Walk trail running festival ah ah in New South Wales, which I think is another big event. And Uribella Trail Ultra over in South Australia. So lots of big races as well as a whole heap of other races. so
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah, we'll cover some of that next week. um And Matty, what have you got on for the next week? Just trying to get back into back into some running. Well, I was supposed to be doing a Golden Trail Series race myself actually in um the Pyrenees in France called Skyrim, but my knee is still a little bit niggly and that is a pretty technical course. It's got a lot of climbing, similar profile to Mammoth Lakes actually. The first half is all up and then the second is all down.
01:00:36
Speaker
So I think I'm going to give that a bit of a miss and hopefully my knee recovers, otherwise I'm going to get a scan. um But outside of running, I'm going back to French school next week, which I'm very excited about. My French is not progressing. yeah My f French is not progressing as fast as I thought it would.
01:00:56
Speaker
So I've decided I need to go back to French school and and educate myself because my housemate Hugo, I've been teaching him English so I've been helping him learn and he's been teaching me a little bit of French but he doesn't speak a whole bunch of English so I really want to get back to school so that I can actually speak to all the people in the Pyrenees who don't speak that much English. um Because outside of the main cities in France, English isn't that well spoken in the mountains. So it makes life a little bit difficult. Oh, that's awesome. It would be so cool to say you're biling bilingual as well. I know. That's the ultimate goal. I'm really excited for that moment. I think it's going to take a long time to get there, though, Jess. You'll get there.
01:01:47
Speaker
what's on for you this way um yeah so just and i'd just be jogging this week um and like still focusing room covering um ah'll get back into training next week um outside of running just um trying not to get scammed on marketplace
01:02:10
Speaker
What's on for you this week? try and find some nice vegan restaurants and cafes um yeah that's pretty much me um sorry we lost Brody again but um yeah it's been a fun episode i feel like we've covered some pretty interesting topics and some really cool cool results so um thanks for tuning in everyone um and i hope you all have a great week