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Billy Curtis | The Long Game, Racing Europe on a Budget, and a Madeira Breakthrough
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Billy Curtis returns to the pod for a deeper conversation with James on the path that has taken him from rugby league and hiking in Tassie to becoming one of Australia’s most exciting trail runners.
We talk through Billy’s early sporting background, how he found trail running almost by accident, and why he chose to learn the sport through shorter, competitive races before stepping further into the longer mountain events.
Billy also opens up about his World Championships experience, the bee/wasp incident that derailed his race, and the lessons that shaped his approach to training, travel, recovery and decision-making after that. From there, we dive into his time living and racing across Europe, how he made it work on a tight budget, and the training blocks that led to his standout second place at Madeira.
This is a conversation about patience, durability, low-ego racing, cheap travel, high-volume training, and finding a way to chase big goals without overcomplicating the process.
***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 of Billy Curtis
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome to People's Shoots podcast. My name is James Sieber and today we're joined by Billy Curtis. Billy has been on the podcast a couple times before, mostly around race results and recaps. He's been on the main show as a guest host, but this is the first time we've had a chance to sit down properly and get to know Billy's story a bit deeper.
00:00:35
Speaker
Billy has had a pretty rapid rise through the Australian trail scene, but what I found really interesting in this conversation was Yes, he's had some really epic results, but it's more the way that he thinks about the sport and his place within it. We start with his background in rugby league, how he discovered trail running through hiking in Tassie and how he approached his first few years in the sport by racing shorter, even though he wanted to go longer, targeting the competitive events and learning as much as possible.
00:01:04
Speaker
From there, we get into his world champs, the wasp incident that I'm sure most of you have heard of that derailed his and a lot of other people's races and how that experience actually helped him make some better decisions around training, health, travel and preparation going forward.
Billy's Transition from Rugby to Trail Running
00:01:18
Speaker
We talked quite extensively about his time living in Europe recently, how he did it on a really tight budget and then came second place at Madeira, which is an epic result. And then we also go a lot into a smaller topics around patience, ego, social media, training,
00:01:34
Speaker
racing as a stimulus and just finding a way to keep moving forward without overcomplicating everything. Something that I really found to appreciate and have done in other conversations with Billy is he has a really simple way of looking at things, but there is a lot of depth, thought and consideration underneath it.
00:01:51
Speaker
So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Billy Curtis. Let's get into it. Billy Curtis, way welcome back to the podcast, mate. It's good to see you here. Yeah, thanks for having me, James. We haven't actually spoken yet, I think, one-on-one, so it's good. I've been on a few times with her some race results, recaps and all that sort of stuff and having some small discussions, but first time together. Yeah. Yeah, it's been good listening back to some of the stuff that you were on, I think the first time beginning of 2025 with Brodie, and then you're on beginning of this year, 2026 with I think Brodie again and Vlad kind of catching up ah ah off those. It's been interesting listening back to those, hearing what you kind of said you were doing at the time, what you had coming forward, what sort of eventuated and where where you are now. Because As we get into it, I think you're a guy with a lot of plans going on. Sometimes they fall through, sometimes they work, but it's fun to to kind of be part of that journey.
00:02:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah, and I'll definitely be hypocritical if you listen back to a few of them. Yeah. And ideas change and ah yeah, whether it's training or travel or anything kind of changes quite a lot. So yeah, got to be careful sometimes with what you say on podcasts of what you're going to do, not in a serious way, but just you do have to be, yeah, think a bit about whether you're doing those things or not.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, and plans change. that You can be locked in, think everything's in line and then something happens and it changes. like Everyone at the moment with international travel is obviously getting a bit better now, but I'm sure there's plenty of plans that have fallen through that people have said they were planning to do on on here or on another podcast. so On the previous ones you've been on, probably more notably Brodie, that's where you went through kind of your running journey from 2023 through to the beginning of 2025. We'll come back and touch on a couple of small things in there that i want to go bit deeper on, but you didn't go too much into kind of who is Billy and how you got to the point that you did come into trail running. So you take us a bit further back and just fill in that gap?
00:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have a really exciting um story into trail running, I think. I used to play rugby in high school, at ro rugby league, and it was, yeah, just ah got probably just everything. Like when you're a kid, if you've got an outlet, you just play a sport and you play it really hard.
00:04:03
Speaker
I think we've probably heard this from all athletes, whether it's like ultra runners, runners, when you listen to on a podcast, you played a sport. follows through and then you stop playing maybe from an injury, which i herniated my L5S1. So I had an injury that put me away from like doing a contact sport and then, yeah, ended up doing some travel, finishing my university degree and um trying to do like outdoor sports, like a non-competitive sport.
00:04:29
Speaker
Um, and climbing was the first one. So I started doing a lot of climbing, mainly indoors, like bouldering, bouldering and what's it called? Like top rope climbing, like quite addictively and really enjoying it. And then wanting to do a lot more outdoors, but I didn't have any gear or friends. So, um, yeah, then I sort of just got into a lot of hiking. Yeah. A lot of hiking and, um,
00:04:50
Speaker
Uh, probably enjoyed the hiking more cause I didn't have to have like a person to go with.
Non-Competitive Approach to Trail Running
00:04:54
Speaker
You can just do it all on your own. Um, and that's when I was living down in Tassie during COVID and just like hiking takes forever.
00:05:02
Speaker
Like just takes so long. If you want to do a four day hike, which takes four days, it could be like 80 kilometers or whatever. And yeah, I just decided to like pick up the pace a little bit when I was down there. The trails are really quiet down there during COVID. Like there was no one traveling obviously.
00:05:17
Speaker
Um, So yeah, and sort of started yeah jogging down there, I guess, but I wouldn't call it trail running. it was much more like hike jogging or like your fast packing, but I didn't really know what that was at the time. So it was more just my own brain going, oh, we'll just make it a bit faster. i'm Like, why do we have to go?
00:05:36
Speaker
do we have to walk? It's too slow. Yeah. um Yes. Yeah. What took you down to Tassie to start off with? I wanted the best place to study environmental science. and Okay.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, I was at the start of COVID and I knew I could just get in on, it's like the middle middle or start of June, I think they were closing the borders there. So I basically got in the the day before and then had to go into lockdown. But the day before that, the ferries weren't crossing. So the day after, sorry, the ferries were going to stop taking people across. i thought, I've got to get down there.
00:06:09
Speaker
get across and then that's what I did. And it was amazing because I got a van and just lived in the van and did a lot of hiking and just sort of a lot of training. Like I did, ah I used to do a lot of like climbing and like hand balancing and hand standing sort of stuff.
00:06:23
Speaker
um Yeah. Living out in yeah different parts of Tassie in a van. As I said, there was no one there at the time. So there's no tourism. yeah So there's no one kicking you out of wherever you ah were because there there's no one down there.
00:06:37
Speaker
so Is there anything from those times in terms of like the hiking and even just like the other stuff you said that sort of set you up for getting into trails and sort of coming in quite hot quite quick? Yeah, definitely. I just wasn't doing any of it for the competitive reasons and I still...
00:06:56
Speaker
I'm like the least competitive. um i I am competitive a little bit with myself, but I'm not a very competitive um like athlete in the sport. Like i don um I don't think of myself as like, I want to beat everyone. Yes, I race a lot at the moment, but I don't actually want to.
00:07:11
Speaker
never look at it like a racing want to beat them i want to beat them or i want to win the race just sort of i don't know just doing it and i think having probably that non sort of sporting introduction where i used to think it was so silly to to pay for an event like to run a race like i think a lot of people think that too when they start but Yeah, I think that's that's probably a good part of it is that I came from it from a very much a, I don't really want to do a competition anymore. I just want to enjoy, yeah, hiking and jogging around. When you were playing rugby, what what level did you get to with rugby?
00:07:48
Speaker
Um, like retrospectively is pretty high. Like every goal that I set, I actually met it just not in the way that I saw. So in, I went to Shalom college and they sort of started rugby league school, like a class and like an actual, um, what would you call it? Like it's a rugby league school now. So my last year i think was their first year of starting or maybe the year after was the first year.
00:08:11
Speaker
And yeah, when I was grade 11, I think we had three and NRL players come from that team. So I actually ended up playing like, i was a dummy harful half or halfback and, or mainly halfback at the time.
00:08:23
Speaker
And I was playing like front row because there was no spot for me on the team because the, two halves and the dummy half were going to be well two of them become nrl players and one of them i think played like the step down from cup so yeah i had no chance i was playing a bit of center bit of front row and then in the next year our team was still competitive but not quite at that next level and then yeah yeah after that i ended up moving out of home like before high school finished down to the sunshine coast because i was from bunderberg
00:08:54
Speaker
And yeah, I started training with the Falcons, which is the feeder club for the Melbourne Storm. So that the twenty s team, the 20s set up. And they had NRL 20s at the time, which was like the NRL version for under 20s. So I was basically in that sort of training system. But yeah,
00:09:11
Speaker
I don't know, when you're just 18 and what, 17, 16 at the time, actually, 16 turning 17. You sort of, I don't know, it's all a bit too much, I think, moving. Yeah.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, you stop training because you're not in a system anymore at school and you've got to do everything yourself. And yeah, the people in front of me too, at that Falcons, like he's the halfback for the Sharks at the moment in the NRL.
00:09:34
Speaker
And then the other ones, um i don't know what he's doing at the moment, but yeah, he was at a start for the Storm a year or two ago as well. So that, yeah, I sort of sort of as saw it as like, I probably don't have a chance of playing for that team anyway, but I did get a few starts.
00:09:49
Speaker
in in those teams and that was actually my goal throughout high school was to play for that Falcons team because a few previous like older athlete out older players had done that and I just thought that was probably the step that I wanted to get to and then that's probably as high as I could have got and I somehow got there so I sort of saw it as unattainable when you're like 14, 15, then you get there and it's not that exciting.
00:10:15
Speaker
i don' I don't know. It's hard to describe that. And maybe that's a little bit similar with trail running now. Maybe I'm like, I got to represent Australia and it was amazing, but it probably isn't like when you're looking at it years ago, you go, wow, this is the most incredible thing. And then you get there you're like, oh, there's now goals that are way ahead, that, you know, further and further ahead. So it becomes a bit, um,
00:10:38
Speaker
It's not a bad, it's not a negative thing, but it's just not as exciting when it happens because it's all so slow, this stack process of years. Yeah. I think it it makes sense for people that ah have felt that. I think a lot of people will understand what you're saying there and there's a term, the erigual fallacy that literally describes exactly what you're talking about. But it's hard to, when you're 14, 15 and you set your goals, it's hard to fully believe in the absolutely unattainable. And so you set something
Training Mindset and Growth
00:11:05
Speaker
that's scary and big, but then you reach it and you realize that it's not everything you thought it would be. And then it's kind of like, well, what next? Do I want to do that push, et cetera. When you were going through so school, the competitiveness of rugby, like it's obviously team environment, so it is different, but the competitive drive is something that often fuels a lot of these people's performances and and their pursuits of getting higher and higher and making ah making it pro.
00:11:29
Speaker
The way you feel about trail running now and coming into it from hiking, is that how you felt about rugby back then? No, was a bit more competitive with rugby, but I just couldn't like get my skill set onto like the field. So that's something I really try to not do in trail running now. So in the past, I think my skill set was so much higher in rugby. like i think...
00:11:51
Speaker
The skills that I had were like ah like retrospectively and at the time I knew they were much better than some of the players that were around me who ended up doing really good performances, like your passing and kicking skills, like your fine motor skills with like, yeah. um But I just couldn't like put it onto the field because I just didn't have that like ah dominant personality or something to...
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, to actually put it into a game. So, yeah, I never really, I don't think I really ever pushed the ceiling of what I should have. Yeah, every every like athlete who says that though when they get older. They go, oh, I could have been better, you know. But I was, yeah, and I still think now if i picked up a footy, I don't touch like a football, like maybe once every two or three years. It's crazy. But I still think my skill set is quite high. I can just pick up a football and, yeah, kick off both feet, pass both ways really, really well.
00:12:42
Speaker
And yeah, do you think that's because a sport like rugby, any ball team sport, really, it it is so much more skill based than running in reality. Like we have to spend a lot of time building your aerobic system to get stronger, to be able to run faster for longer. And it's, yes, it's it's a skill and we have to develop skills along the way, but it's not the same kind of development that you do in a sport like rugby. Cause I have the same reflection for skiing. Like you can become skillful very quickly and you can work on the intricacies, but it's quite hard to work on the intricacies of running. Cause you have to just run. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah. I've never thought of it that way, but yeah, like so many rugby players or sporting players don't actually work on the fine skills, like just the very basic passing, kicking, everything. A team like the um the All Blacks, like I love to still read all of their books and all their athlete biographies because they have that same same sort of mindset it's all about the very very small skill sets of individuals within a team that collectively comes together to make it a very good team but it's's it's crazy how many athletes don't actually work on their individual like skills because they're actually really easy to develop yeah but then in running as you say it is there are skills that you've got to develop but it's mainly just like time time each week yeah yeah it's
00:14:00
Speaker
It's one like I come, I think back to myself and obviously coaching, but even just my own my own running, like i think skillfully downhill is probably the one being on technical terrain is the one that can take that most practice. But even then you're limited by what your body can take in one session. And yes, that's kind of the same for passing, but it's it's such lower load and and stress. It's, you can't fine tune it the same way. I don't think, but yeah.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, as you were talking, it's it's I can that definitely understand what you're saying there. Coming through to getting into running, was there an element of you that was excited about doing a sport that was individual versus team?
00:14:38
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. It's just like the time element. Like I just really enjoy spending a lot of time training. Like when I played rugby, I enjoyed training on my own. um So when it came to running, it's very easy.
00:14:49
Speaker
So you've got to set up a lot of, in rugby, you've got to, if you're going to train yourself, you've got to set up so many different things to practice. But with running, it is literally just going out the door and running. It was kind of easy. So even my first year of trying to do running, like I moved back from Tassie and started doing some running, I did a fair few weeks, 150, in my first few months of actually running for no reason. Like I didn't didn't know anything better. I just sort of went out and ran around Glasshouse and it was fun and just take it easy. And yeah, I don't know, like it was
00:15:25
Speaker
kind of an easy thing to do coming from maybe a a background of spending 20 25 hours a week training on all these different other skills in rugby league to yeah look at a sport and go oh I've just got to go for a run that's it it's cool it's all it is what year was that when you when you're doing doing that training I think that would have been actually been 2021 or 2022.
00:15:50
Speaker
But okay the the average volume of training throughout the week, would ah throughout the year would have been like 40k for the year, I'd say. But yeah, there was some weeks where I'd just go and train. Did you get injured through that time?
00:16:03
Speaker
No. Interesting. Yeah. Cause like there's someone coming into the sport. I feel like the concept of going out there, even if you're used to training so much and just running for 150, 160 it's that, that was probably more surprising to me than somebody that would just come in and and not not do enough. For example, like it's, more is is sometimes hard to wrap your head or head around like was there someone that you were looking at at that point like oh they run this much so it's obviously normal i'll just run or is it just purely off your own back that you just went for it yeah i can think of some people so pietor babas i remember when i lived in tassie i saw some of his running so that's not a good start um and then
00:16:46
Speaker
host say um rui era I remember reading his Red Bull stuff and Jim Wamsley, cause he used to post on Strava and it just come up when I was following five people, just my friends. And I think I followed Jim and I think he was doing like 250, 300 kilometer weeks. I wasn't trying to like match him or go like, Oh, I should try run that much. It's just it happened to be who you come across. And then locally, um,
00:17:10
Speaker
I remember Tom Brimlow, Kyle Weiss, and Eddie Kjop. They're like these guys in the Gold Coast. They're really good runners, and they train a fair bit. um Yeah, I remember looking up to them just because they raced around where I was running and trained, and I thought, wow, they're really good. So, yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah. So rest of 21 and into 22 then, what what was your intention with running? Because when you talking to to Brodie and talking about 2023, the thing that really struck me was that every race was almost targeted because of the competitiveness or something you can learn from it or develop. And that's for somebody to do that and correct me if I'm wrong here, but for someone to do that, to me, that signifies that they have clearly decided to try and become the best they can become in that sport. And they know that like, that's not just trying to get as fast as they can, but they need to fine tune the skill of racing and being these environments and getting used to different types of trained people, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, 2021, 22, how are you thinking about you within running and the future?
00:18:12
Speaker
21 22, not at all really. It was the end of 2022. um i must have had that. i was a uni student, so I had a really quiet summer. I I just thought about, oh, well, I could have a go at this. And like if you're going to have a go, do you raise some local events and try to win them, which i which is great great to do, obviously, if you don't have much time and you just want to push yourself.
00:18:36
Speaker
But I just thought it's probably best to like look up the like hardest, not hardest, the most competitive. And I got some of them wrong at the time too, like whatever the most competitive is. um Yeah, but I think it was a pretty good year of actually finding the races. I didn't know anything about like...
00:18:54
Speaker
a lot of trial running then like things like mandatory gear or who was good or what, like, um, even looking at it, like an elevation profile is just like, Oh, that run looks like it's really competitive year after year. So I better do that.
00:19:08
Speaker
And that's why I've always gone to UTA to start with that. ah Yeah. um Yeah, looking back through the results, like secured Buffalo, UTA, BTU, and it was part of the Golden Trail National Series year, Triple Top, and then Cozzy.
Managing Ego and Personal Growth
00:19:26
Speaker
you With a few exceptions, you've pretty much nailed all of the big... 50k and below races in in in your first year and performing performing really well at them like performances that you would obviously far surpass now but if you want to know where you stand and where you're weak against your components and then also learning how to set race those races that's pretty much a perfect first year i would say of like not too much density like it's not and there's probably are right events that aren't showing up on it right now but you're able to train probably training through a lot of these i'm guessing not using any of these as like key races but just turning up race hard repeat but that's a pretty pretty awesome first year of going at this du when you think back to it now i'm talking three years ago how do you feel about your your introduction and how you went about it
00:20:13
Speaker
i think i went about it in a pretty good way i think i really dropped my ego because i didn't i didn't want to do like the short races i think that ah maybe the past few years might have been pinned in to be oh you raced 20k or 30k races i don't know i just sort of looked at if i'm going to do it for a long time or you got to i think learn as much as you can from the shorter races and i've never really focused on like really developing and getting fast for short races But I still think it's worth racing them because you get so much experience from being in a race and being around people that are better than you. um
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, during that year too, i did I think one of the races I probably learned the most from and I got the most confidence was um the track marath um Brisbane Marathon, Trail Marathon. And there's a 25K and both Ben Duffus was in it and Jeremy Hunt was in it.
00:21:02
Speaker
And we ran so quick, like so fast. It was so good. we all ah was sort of trailing them in the whole day. And, um yeah, I ended up beating Jeremy on that day. And Jeremy was going to world champs in Austria that year. And he was obviously so strong at running uphill when he was in his prime, just so, so good at running uphill.
00:21:20
Speaker
um But, yeah, i was only like a couple of minutes behind Ben and his course record there. So I was like, wow, like that's, I couldn't believe it because I knew Ben and I sort of looked up to him the time. I still look up to Ben. But yeah, I was so like, wow, how did I do that?
00:21:33
Speaker
um The other races, I just didn't know who anyone was. So I didn't really have much context. Now, obviously, I look back and retrospectively and go, oh wow, that's pretty cool, actually, as well. But that one, I think, yeah, was awesome.
00:21:46
Speaker
When you get results like that, you're beating Jeremy right behind Ben. And even if you didn't have the context of it, like a third at Buffalo 20K, then a third at UTA 22, you finish the year off with second at Cosi 50. I feel like it can go one of two ways and it's clearly gone the the second way I'm going to get for you. But there's one way that you go, oh, I've only just started this and I'm already on the podium.
00:22:06
Speaker
Like I'm a pretty big deal. I'm going to be great at this. The ego gets inflated. whereas you seem to have gone into it and being like, oh, there's so much more to do. i'm'm I'm coming in at like the first level and and this is really exciting because I can grow and I can develop and I can get better. So did you ever find that there was a point in 23 or any other year where that ego has started to increase a little bit and you've had to keep it controlled?
00:22:30
Speaker
No, definitely not. No. No, I remember when I did um Buffalo that year, um the world champs in Austria was not that long after, maybe like a month after. can't remember. Yeah, I think it was June. Yeah. yeah I remember seeing like, oh, what's my pace and gap pace at Buffalo? Like at a short race, it was like 19. And then I looked at Stian's win there and I was like, oh my God, I would have to go so much faster and for like two and a half times as long.
00:22:59
Speaker
was like, that altitude, way more technical, way harder. I was like, wow, like that is just ridiculous. And I still look at those athletes now and just go, oh, wow, how do they how do they do that?
00:23:10
Speaker
So, no, I don't think I really... Maybe even more so the other way, like the more... Is that saying the more you learn the... Unless you know it. Yeah, unless you know it. Yeah, maybe that works here. No.
00:23:24
Speaker
Anyway, yeah. Like the the more you find out about how... good travelers around the world the sort of less you think you're as good i guess and that's not negative either that's just reality no i think it goes for it goes for everything like as you you come into something and i'm pretty sure there's actually ah there's a time for this missing a graph but you kind of have this initial increase in experience or knowledge and you so you think that you're that these needs And then you get a bit more and then you realize how far away you actually are and how little you know. And then I kind think of it like the more experience you gain, the more you realize you have so much more to learn and so much more to grow. And it it is like, i was as you're saying, that I was thinking was it had the opportunity to so inflate your ego. But then when you are looking internationally and you're comparing to people like Steeleon, who at the time was the best in the world, was there ever a point where you where you thought, I don't think I can close that gap? or like, why am I trying so much to put my time and energy and money into this space?
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, I probably still can't answer why. I don't know. It's just like a feeling you have that it will work out in the end and everything will be good. So you just continue on pushing. And I think that helps to keep that curve going up rather than plateauing.
00:24:33
Speaker
I don't think I really... like usually you have in a sport whether it's like powerlifting you have like this massive growth in your plateau and strength within like two years and it's very hard to like continue um like progressing basically i don't think i've hit like um like this progression curve yet which i should have probably hit by now but actually feel like every six months it's a very even step up in the right direction and i think even my Like my races and my results even show that too.
00:25:00
Speaker
Like it's just sort of like over, not like a month to month because I have quite a lot of dips in that because of how many times I race and just life and everything. But every six month block, like I clearly know I'm improving at like yeah quite ah quite a um good rate, I think. Yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
Definitely. I would completely agree. But it's a very tricky mindset to have that, to really be patient, zoom out and think that big long term picture. like What is it about your you or your personality that's able to to do this? like Because it's so suited to endurance sports where it it rewards people that are willing to be patient but put in the work for long term. I just i don't know. I don't really mind if it doesn't work out. like I'm okay if like it doesn't work out in next few months for a race or an event. like It's all fine. it doesn't really...
00:25:52
Speaker
it really doesn't impact. It's hard to just say this because everyone goes, oh yeah, sure. It doesn't. But like if you don't win or you don't have a good result or you I don't know, you get sick, overtrained, like I've been overtrained multiple times. It's okay. It doesn't matter in the end because you just take a few weeks.
00:26:08
Speaker
You try and train through it sometimes and it's fine, which I wouldn't recommend, but yeah you rest through your cover and you sort of come back and it all ends up being okay. So I think just knowing that whatever happens whatever the outcome is it doesn't doesn't really matter too much like when you have a really good result i sort of have a similar feeling as to when i have a bad result it's ah either either way doesn't make me happier or sad i stay within a very small bandwidth of like emotion in life i think so maybe that helps i don't get too happy when something that happens and i get too sad it all stays within a pretty maybe like a boring range i don't know I think it works for this. it
00:26:44
Speaker
yeah I like it as ass personally very similar to to myself, but it's, it it allows you to to never get too stuck in that moment, good or bad. And you're always able to keep moving forward from it.
00:26:55
Speaker
I think it's too easy to get stuck with that chip on your shoulder of a good result in the past or get, weighed down by a bad result if you live the highs and really high and the lows really low personally but so you said earlier how when you came into the running you initially thought about ultras but then came down race the 20k learn how to race learn how to get faster was there something that kind of uh or someone that told you that that was a better way to go about it as opposed to just going straight into the longer distances No, no, I don't think so. um Yeah, we think the start twenty end of the end 2022, no, I didn't have anyone around me yet to sort of give advice. Like I did talk to Ben Duffers maybe over that, maybe around when I raced Buffalo and that track race.
00:27:44
Speaker
But Ben's pretty um to himself and quiet. He doesn't give away too much. So I didn't really get to learn too much from him. But yeah. Yeah. so not really much guidance i don't think at the time and that actually in the future i did reach out to jeff at track and he's actually helped with this process of like if people were in a similar situation they've now got like someone to go to which is those those tracks kept track camps as well so which is really cool awesome because that's um yeah i remember even
00:28:16
Speaker
back then it's just like i i could do well at some races but i knew those people that were way better were not performing well at races probably because they didn't really have like um um i don't know how to describe it like how to just prepare well to be at an event and travel well and um be rested and not worry about your result or not worry about the outcome that sort of stuff and just know what you're doing thinking back now with that with all the knowledge that you've got if if you were to give that advice to the 2022 version of you what are the like the key things that that stand out oh i don't know actually can we we'll come back to this maybe we'll come back i'll think about i'll think about it while we yeah yeah sounds good
00:29:00
Speaker
um okay i think there's I think there's just other people that can give much better advice around it than myself. I suppose I've gone through it a bit, but I don't really know because how I went through it was probably a good way in the end. So it's hard to sort of go, oh, well, what mistakes did I make?
00:29:19
Speaker
Some, but maybe they weren't mistakes. two or three years down the track but i'm not i'm not even talking about mistakes like the things you did did well i think it's it's it's pointing because this conversation is happening at the moment yeah listen to the podcast so you'll know and and i i really respect and i i personally would suggest someone do the same thing where they develop themselves from the shorter distances regardless of if their heart is kind of in it or not because it is probably going to extend your life in the sport, but also make you a better runner. Like you're, you're a, you can race so much more frequently, so you can become a better racer, but then there's so many other factors to that as well. So we'll come back to it
Preparation and Challenges at World Champs
00:29:59
Speaker
at the end. But I think that you, you sharing your experience
00:30:04
Speaker
is it doesn't matter if it's not going to work for the person listening it's still just a perspective that can help somebody and somebody else might go nah screw billy i disagree with that that's fine yeah yeah that's that's part of it um we're never going to be the perfect answer for everyone so coming through so i said for peter if anyone listening can kind of go go back to the first time you're on to learn a bit more about us so the 23 24 period i want to bring us through to more more building up through to to worlds and then coming to here because worlds was you said an amazing opportunity but didn't quite go the way that you wanted it to go obviously um take us through the like yeah the experience of worlds but then mostly the experience post worlds and sort of what you were feeling how you're feeling towards the sport what was next for you
00:30:50
Speaker
um Yeah, the preparation into Worlds actually went really good. I think the about five or six months before, I was really struggling with like a bit of sickness and illness, which now I've worked out what it what it is. And it's actually linked to World Champs on the day. So that happening now has helped in the end, which i'll get to.
00:31:09
Speaker
But no, i actually had really good preparation into World Champs. I definitely got to my fittest and strongest. I've sort of been probably at the time. and then traveled really well and spent some time by myself or not by myself with my partner in italy and we just like shut ourselves out from the world and just really relaxed and trained easy and prepared really well and even stayed like quite away from the the setup so some of the team would probably just think i'm an introverted mean not want to talk to anyone but it was really like traveling asia and just knowing how hard it is to be at a race overseas and
00:31:45
Speaker
Like what you can stuff up, like being in a controlled environment helps a lot and not in a way, um, not too controlled. Like if anything goes wrong, you get really annoyed. It's just like having the same food, having like a comfortable bed and sleeping well, all those sorts of things are actually really important to actually perform well.
00:32:02
Speaker
Um, Yeah, so I felt like I was really good and I felt quite strong in the first climb. And then, yeah, I got stung by some wasps or bees. I don't think anyone ever worked out what it was. In the end on podcasts, still here. Like people say wasps or bees. I'm not sure. um And yeah, I just had a reaction them, which I've had in the past growing up on farms. Just swell up a lot, um but not to like, not anaphylactic or anything, but I just produce a lot of histamine in my body. So especially the past few years, I get...
00:32:29
Speaker
a lot of like hay fever suddenly. And I don't know why. And I get inflammation in my body. I'm just what's going on? um And then when I was racing in China, i also got um asthma. Like I've never had asthma, but because the pollution was so high, i had like an an environmental asthma. And I spoke to, you know, Tate Herbst. He's actually a doctor.
00:32:50
Speaker
And he gave me some advice around this around a year ago too, but I never took it on board too seriously. and then, yeah, the past few months of, done some more research into it and then what to sort of take and how long to take it for and yeah now I've sort of fixed the problem and I'm back living on the sunny coast and actually feeling good even though I'm working in an environment that's like just so much like pollen and grass and everything can yeah so I'm actually actually helped me work out a problem because it was kind of like
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's all sort of the same. don't know how to describe it. It's like your histamine, muscles have some like mast cells in them. And then when you get a histamine reaction, it releases these, which causes a lot of inflammation.
00:33:33
Speaker
And you just take whatever I'm taking now. for a week or two and then you start to just stop that production of misdemean, I suppose.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah, I know. i feel amazing. It's crazy. Like, I just feel so rude. that's why I've been out. And I got to race on the weekend, which I didn't even think I'd get to race being back here because... the job that I have, I just get exposed to a lot of it. So I'm just always watery eyes, runny nose, inflamed body. So yeah, it's a bit of a side tangent there, but yeah, that's basically, that's basically what happened. And then, yeah, I just spent the whole world champs course walking and I actually got to run with everyone because I was running at the front the start and then Vlad got to me, I think, and ran with him for a bit. And then Blake got to me. I fell down side a cliff with, well, not with Blake, but next to me, I got attacked by some because they were like constant. It was like,
00:34:22
Speaker
I think I had six things on me and just they were just coming at you the whole time and I just fell off the side of a switchback. it's so embarrassing. oh Yeah. so i thought Because I think like everything that I heard was it was on like the first climb you were going up some switchbacks and there was some bees or wasps and I didn't realize that they just kept going.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, every corner. Every corner had them. ah Yeah. Yeah, it was so bad. um Yeah, and then ended up, the yeah, ran with them for a bit and then sort of kept running and sort of felt really bad. I didn't really know what to do.
00:34:54
Speaker
I didn't think people would have, like, the histamine on course. Like, I didn't know that was a thing. was just... take it bit easier and see how i feel. And then I ended up hiking the whole thing. I tried to pull out halfway through, but then sort of got pushed to keep going. So I was like, okay. And then, yeah, ended up running a little bit with everyone. So it was pretty cool um in a way, but I felt horrible. That's so much pain, like in my chest and my back, like just like pinching and pulling in my um like chest to the back of my traps from the inflammation and that. But,
00:35:27
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I kind of wish I pulled out, though. It's just like it's a risky thing to do for not really. a We didn't even score in the end. That was the thing, too. We didn't even get to score because what happened? No. yeah Oh, anyway, I can't remember. But I remember looking at it going, I shouldn't have worried anyway. Yeah.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's so tricky in that but when you know that you need your your results kind of needed for the team, it's like, and and you were still moving forward. And then you go to an A station and people aren't notably like pulling you off the course, you must be like, oh I can't be that bad then. I'll just keep going.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're kind of like, Oh, it's been so much money yeah yeah going. Yeah. But no, in the end, I wish I did just pull out. I think it would have been like a smarter thing to do and, um, probably helped me take some more like professional step.
00:36:18
Speaker
Well, not professional, but like make more professional like decisions in the following six
Learning from Training Influences and Mistakes
00:36:24
Speaker
months. That sort of made me think a bit more that like, I can't just be like silly and what I do, whether it's training or life or yeah.
00:36:34
Speaker
So just continuing to make like a little bit better decisions. Let's, Go on to that then. it will what What do you identify as the things that you needed to change to stop being silly or however you want to put it, going past worlds?
00:36:49
Speaker
Probably just more control over things like your diet, sleep, like every pattern you have throughout a day and throughout a week has to sort of be in line with each other if you want to have like really positive adaptations to your training think everything's got to really go with a like a pattern of your life um and you can't force the pattern because it's sometimes from externally whether it's your job or your family or your relationship or what food you have or where you're living. so I think like finding that pattern wherever you are and like just working into the pattern rather than trying to force something.
00:37:25
Speaker
Because I think it's very easy but when you're training in new places or even at home to try to force something to happen so if you're training for a race with a lot of vert but you live somewhere flat trying to act really force the the vert training really hard because you know you've improve and you don't have access to it so yeah so i think just like building patterns throughout your day in your life are there clear times pre worlds where you had tried to force it or hadn't tried to get into that that rhythm that pattern No, not before Worlds, but before Asia-Pacific the previous year. Yeah.
00:37:58
Speaker
I really pushed the training really hard with the vertical, with like steep steep stuff. I got over-trained before Asia-Pacific that year. Just, like just. I was so strong like a few weeks before and just pushed it a little bit too far, which was a good learning curve. But...
00:38:15
Speaker
um yeah. Yeah. I think the that when it happened at Worlds, like the thing of not pulling out of the course, that was more just like, um yeah, an afterthought of like, oh, what decisions do I have to make now? Because I'm living over in Europe and I've got a race seriously. So like, what decisions can I make if something like that comes up again, whether it's like an injury, whether it's overtraining, like what decision do you then make, which is should be stop doing whatever it is, forcing problems.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i its It's interesting. So when you were training in for Asia Pacific and you've spoken about your your high high volume block and cut coming into Asia Pacific is a bit overdone.
00:38:57
Speaker
What was it about that training cycle or Asia Pacific that you feel like you you did get wrong? Because just doing too much elevation is one thing or being making a bit too long is another. Was it the pressure of being your first national team from a running perspective? Like, What was coming together to make you push that a bit too hard?
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah, I had a like a planned block of 10 weeks of like just a ton of volume. um I think it was following um one of the Scandinavian sort of athletes. remember writing like a b blog or writing like a training manual up and I was just like, all right, I'll just give that a go. And I had a vertical kilometer, not far from home. So so it's been a lot of time there. um But I had a race four weeks before Asia Pacific's that I really wanted to do.
00:39:41
Speaker
And I couldn't do it. Like when they found out I was on the start list, they were like, you can't do that. And I was like ah, okay. So then I just added in intensity because like, oh, well, if I'm not doing that race, well, maybe I'll just do you a bit of intensity before Asia Pacific's because that training block was no intensity. It was once every two or three weeks do like a hard vertical like a hard vk the rest of it was like easy intensity so yeah i added in this intensity or kind of like in one and go before because i thought i didn't i didn't have like a big stimulus from that race four weeks before so i'll just add a heap in and then that just overdid it with all the travel and change food and lifestyle what was the the big bit of intensity you added in um I did one, i was doing like one session a week on the on the flats, I think. I can't remember exactly.
00:40:31
Speaker
I did one big, um like a 30k run with like 2000 climbing. It's like a very hard first hour, i remember. And then like maybe a few days later, I get back into a session when I should have just been resting and lowered the volume a heap.
00:40:47
Speaker
But it was just general intensity because I don't do much intensity in training. So I think at the time I might have been doing like maybe 90 minutes to... Yeah, around 90 minutes a week, I'd say, for those weeks leading in, which was just too much.
00:40:59
Speaker
Okay, interesting. when When you're looking at... how your training evolved from 22 to, we'll just go to worlds for now. Cause I want to spend more time talking about this European stint. What were the main influences on how, how you train? it just spoke about reading up on the Scandinavians training. So like, where were you pulling all this from to, to form what you were doing? um I'd say mainly from the uphill athlete book, like Scott Johnson's book from years ago. i remember I did one muscular endurance block around 2023, think.
00:41:34
Speaker
No, 2024. Sorry, I started 2024. So I've done a yeah yeah a bit of following that kind of training, but not to the T. And yeah, trying to read up about like what training a lot of...
00:41:47
Speaker
um especially Northern European athletes do because there's a lot of like literature from Norway, Sweden, Scandinavia generally. So they sort of cross that over into more orienteering, less trial running, but you can yeah read some really good things about Scandinavian orienteers, how they train their volume, their intensity, everything like that, which is basically really high volume and a very minimal intensity and very, very controlled intensity.
00:42:15
Speaker
And not minimal intensity, but minimal in comparison to their overall volume. Yeah. Okay. So do do most weeks have a form of intensity still? It's just a very small percentage of your total workload?
00:42:28
Speaker
um A lot of weeks don't. I don't do much intensity. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like there's a lot of weeks that don't have anything above like Yeah, I'd say my threshold heart rate is 168 to 172 and there's lots of weeks that don't go over like 140, 145. Not even any strides. I'm so lazy with intensity, but I think it helps with keeping my body pretty fresh all the time for racing because I race quite a lot. So, yeah, and kind of in that sense, the racing is your intensity, would you say?
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah, definitely, yeah. i'm I'm a bit of a – I'm pretty sold on the idea of racing three to four weeks out, but as like a big stimulus before a race. And you see a lot of athletes, especially European athletes, do this. Like Tove ran three or four weeks of 50K before she broke the course record at Zagama.
00:43:16
Speaker
she she ran raced ken frank four weeks was it four weeks before world champs yeah i it four weeks yeah yeah like yeah and these are athletes who do extremely high volume so they can handle that massive load and yeah there's obviously a lot of benefits to it but i yeah can't go describe the physiology of it sorry No, no, no. And it's it's not just the volume. It's also so they, ah in the most case, professional or or very close to athletes. So their recovery capacity between all this stuff is incredible. Yeah. Think of Elazine who just set the course record, as like won and of course notco record the one at Zagama and then the next weekend is winning at Ledgerow. Yeah, so incredible. Yeah.
00:43:56
Speaker
yeah like most most mere mortals physically could not do that back up and if he did you'd just be in an absolute appalling state um but his context and his training history allows him to do that so it's yeah it's good it's good to recognize that do you do you feel like and we're getting into the weeds a bit with the training so tell me to shut up it i find it really interesting but do you feel like your um Are you open to other ways of of training or do you feel like you've you've come to this point where you're like, this is what works for me right now for where I want to go and I don't really need to draw on too many external voices or opinions or sources. I just need to do me.
00:44:33
Speaker
Um, probably a couple ways of it couple ways of answering this. I think that removing all of the, um, the online external input then inputs, if you remove all like the social media and watching too much YouTube, especially when you're in a block, if you're in a block of eight to 10 weeks, you do not want to keep learning about training because you just want to believe in what you're doing at that time. Um, yeah but I think ah even just scrolling on social media and just seeing what different people are doing, strolling too much on,
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, Strava maybe. um I don't see why Strava impacts people's training, but I understand that it does. But just seeing the different ways that people train, I think, really can negatively impact your own training because you start changing little things throughout a block and then maybe you don't get the nice adaptations that were going to come from this block or you overdo things. Yeah.
00:45:25
Speaker
That's one way of answering it. Sorry, it's a bad way of answering it. But yeah, definite's good definitely. I'm very open to different ways of training for sure. Yeah. Probably the only one I'm not open to is probably doing a low volume of training because I really enjoy it. And like, yeah, I would be, it sounds silly too, because I race so much once again, but I would be more than happy to not race and just train more than what I am now because always feel like, oh, I just don't get to train enough because train a little bit less on race week and a little bit less week after.
00:45:55
Speaker
would just be nice to train all the time, a lot. Yeah. I feel like once you know that your body responds well to volume, like more is kind of more, as long as you can recover from it, adapt to it, like you said. And and I think the the first part of your answer there was all about patience, is that these adaptations, these changes, they don't happen on week to week timeframes. They happen on month to month or even sort of like quarter to quarter, year to year. And it can be really hard when you have Strava and you see people doing these like fun looking sessions, but you just have no context into how they've got to that point and where that fits in and how it fits their physiology and their psychology.
00:46:30
Speaker
um I'm not sure I've gone with that one, but it's, yeah, it it it definitely, it definitely makes sense. But wanting to maintain your volume, I think that's probably a good place. I don't think 50K a week would suit you very well.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah, and just training, like the adaptations, they just take so long. And always looking at it on like a short time scale, it takes forever. no yeah It can happen fast for people who do have access to like the lifestyle that allows for those adaptations and that, but...
00:46:58
Speaker
yeah It just takes so long. So that makes me feel good each week because it means i don't feel like I need to do too much intensity and worry too much about the pace that i'm running because I just know that it's going to take forever to get good anyway. So we can just can just relax and just run easy all the time.
00:47:13
Speaker
When you are thinking about what the the likes of Stian are doing or right now, whoever whoever you're looking at as that benchmark for performance, is there any any element of you that this is kind of closing that gap, this that the duration it's going to take that that is like, if only I could be in this environment, I could train like this and I could get there faster. Does that come into it at all for you?
00:47:37
Speaker
No, I think that it stressed me out too much if I worried about that because yeah, if you're always worrying about, Oh, well, and you do hear a bit of this as well. They're like, if I had a sponsor, if someone supported me or a brand supported me, maybe I could do this and do that. And,
00:47:52
Speaker
In the end, that's just like stress on your system. Like whatever you have access to week to week, just go with it. And yeah, if you have some time off work to train, train some more. And if you don't, well, don't worry about it. Just do the best you can week to week.
00:48:07
Speaker
So no, I try not to sort of worry about what what I could what is going on immediately that is annoying me that doesn't let me train well. But I do obviously try to plan into the future pretty far ahead of times when I'll have months and months to be to train really well and add in things like more intensity like I did in in Europe and be able to do things a bit more professionally.
Social Media's Impact on Focus and Training
00:48:31
Speaker
Hmm.
00:48:33
Speaker
I noticed that you, I'm not quite sure when it was, but you deleted your Instagram and then you've only recently come back onto it. yeah But is getting rid of Instagram and the kind of relationship to social media in general, does that sort of feed the fact that you're able to just do your thing? Was that a that part of that decision?
00:48:53
Speaker
I think this is probably my sixth Instagram. I'm pretty sure it's in Thai school. So it's not it's not just a thing with trail running. I just just get very sick of like... my brain having to be not immediately where I am. Like when you're just looking at things generally and it could only be 10 minutes a day, um you just, brain's not where you where you are immediately. So yeah, I think it's it's not a good habit. And I just look at things and just go like, is it providing me a benefit? I think there's a Japanese term for this with like throwing out things you don't need.
00:49:27
Speaker
but does this provide a benefit? No. Okay. Throw it the bin. It's like with clothing and like clutter in your house. I think it is, but it's just like, did it provide any benefit?
00:49:38
Speaker
No, because i can, everyone that wants to talk to me and I want to talk to family, friends, everyone you can contact like in so many different ways. Now you don't have to be on Instagram and I do enjoy seeing what people are doing. So I do miss that. But then I can just use someone else's phone when,
00:49:55
Speaker
You don't have Instagram. If you're like, I really want to see what they're doing, you can quickly look up what they're doing. um so Yeah. Why then have you got it back?
00:50:06
Speaker
i because if you want a free race entry it's it helps it's in the contracts and i don't mean to say this because um some of the race organizers will obviously probably listen to this and i'm i'm yeah going to yeah going to have it to have it for the purpose of posting for yeah for reshares and that sort of stuff which i think is very valuable both for like myself if I wanted to grow an Instagram page which I'm not worrying about but for like the event organizers to repost so I'm definitely not being arsy about and going oh I've got to have it but yeah it sits not on my phone and I don't really go on it so okay so you've been able to separate yourself from using it and getting lost for those 10 minutes or more a day at this time
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah. and I've always, if someone does want a recommendation, just delete the app and open it on Safari. It just ruins the experience of scrolling because it's so laggy. So I think I might've said this before, but yeah, just do that. And like the brain doesn't then like get that dopamine thing going because it's laggy and it's, it's kind of boring. So then you click out of it quickly. I think that's very good advice. like I often say the set the the timer for it so you can only use five minutes a day, which is like enough to post something if you want to, but that's it. I like like the idea of using it on a browser, on your especially on your phone.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, and then if you post, just post it through that um that app, which probably every athlete who starts social media does there the suite app whatever it is because you don't have to go onto it to post it. can just upload it all on there and have it scheduled for whatever day of the week you want.
00:51:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's it's it's something that i I personally struggle with as from a coaching perspective. I like to share the the the stories of my athletes and and celebrate them. But personally, i hate social media. Like I just find myself losing time in it. And like you say, the the brain side of it, just you're not engaging in things that are helpful. um But it's a really I find it a really tricky place to be. I know a lot of other people do share that. So I think it's an interesting to hear yeah where you sit with that at the moment.
00:52:13
Speaker
Yeah, and social media will always just, there's so many podcasts on why social media is bad, but the less that you look at it, the more it tries to get you. Like it'll just try keep going with content till it finds something that engages you. So even if you think you're good it good at staying off it,
00:52:31
Speaker
If you're going on there on the app like it and you just like scroll out of the app or flick out of the app, next time you go in, it's going to try to get you with some other type of content and one of them is going to drag you in. So, yeah, you can't beat it. Yeah.
00:52:47
Speaker
No, i I agree. And it is, yeah it is but it right. It is a very real consideration. Like you need to have a social presence because an an event giving you a free entry is is them needing some form of marketing or some form of of return on that investment. um Because it might or might not be just a free entry. It might be assistance to get there or accommodation or food or whatever whatever it is. And it does does help to have to have that. It just helps if they don't also then look at your uh your number of posts or your number of followers it makes it lot easier but it's also like i know i think it's to a degree if you're sharing it authentically then does it matter like you're still your core audience is engaging with that so that's really what a brand or an event should care about so yeah i just thought it was an interesting one having seen that you deleted and came back on didn't realize it was for probably the sixth time
00:53:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's been so many times. Yeah. But I do really try to reach out to organizers for this reason that I'm not going to be active, super active on social media. I do always offer to have like other ways that I can help. So in the past I've done things like, um, like newspaper write-ups or um, blog posts, sort of like blog long format writing. But in the end that actually takes way more time than just doing the post on Instagram.
00:54:01
Speaker
And usually like a lot of the time I've done this and they don't, they I shouldn't be harsh about this because I'm getting something of like from this organizers. um Yeah, they don't use it. So then in the end, I'm like, I could have provided them with more value by just doing the post because they probably read it and just went, not going to use that.
00:54:20
Speaker
So yeah yeah, try to do try to like make an offer to to to help in other ways if I can. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, that's all you can do, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So this brings back to world champs.
00:54:35
Speaker
You're staying in Europe. i think it'd be be interesting to, at a high level, kind of go over how you've made this all happen because from the outside, it looks like you've spent ah a significant amount of time in Europe,
European Training Strategy and Race Planning
00:54:47
Speaker
basically just training. I know i know you you were doing some work at the same time, but It looked like quite an incredible life that would be very expensive to go about, but i know that hasn't been the case. um well like How have you made this all happen, basically?
00:55:01
Speaker
Yeah, it probably looks it probably looks really cool from the outside, but it's probably a lot more boring than people's ambitions of going to Europe are when you're actually doing it. um So basically, moved back to the farm that I've worked at when I was at university. So it's big farm in the Sunshine Coast.
00:55:18
Speaker
My cost of living is very low because I live on the farm and I can basically save every every dollar. So I saved up as much as I could um and sort of confirmed I was going to World Champs and just started like just looking for the cheapest ways to live. So there's a few different options you can go.
00:55:35
Speaker
when i was considering it last year which is doing things like work away so you're basically working for free you don't get paid you get some food accommodation you can live usually somewhere rurally which is usually in europe next to some good mountains so this could be like attending to a goat herd or you know like working in a permaculture farm which is like a small hobby farm um that's a good way if people are interested in that alternative lifestyle because it's usually like quite an alternative group so they'd be accepting of people who have a weird hobby like trail running i reckon um and i've done that years and years ago in tenerife in the canary islands like
00:56:15
Speaker
2018 2019 so i had experience living super cheap in europe um so i had like a bit of a an idea of of how to do it but i ended up going down the route of just booking long-term airbnbs in very cheap places that are far away from like usually far away from touristy locations but also they were close enough to an airport where you can fly anywhere in europe whether you're going to races or training blocks or just general travel for something to do um So yeah, just booked really far ahead and was lucky enough to like my partner, she came as well. So we could split everything. So the, um the average cost of, I can't remember exactly. It would between 120 to $150 week
00:56:58
Speaker
of a combination like per week So sometimes it was down to $70 in like Montenegro, Macedonia, and then sometimes upwards of $280 to $300 in the Canary Islands. Well, in La Palma, Grand Canary was cheaper, but we, yeah, we can get to that.
00:57:16
Speaker
um But very important to to be close to mountains and be close to an airport. I think that's, Yeah, you can find those locations in Europe quite easily. And yeah, just look at the flights before you live there. So then you can fly to the relevant races that you want to go to if you're wanting to live there longer term. And I'm guessing, have you found that the public transport has been like pretty good in all the places that you've been? Because I'm assuming that's how how you've been getting around. Yeah, you'll find someone to give you a lift. Yeah.
00:57:44
Speaker
People are really nice. Yeah. Like and yeah in in France, you've got blah, blah car in the mountains. So you can go like we were at um like 2000 meters living for a while and we would have to run a hike down to get picked up like eight kilometers and like a thousand meters of descending with our packs on to get to races.
00:58:03
Speaker
But you jump in a blah, blah car, it'll take you to the airport to fly or take another one to get to another little race you want to go to So there's always options that was the hardest one brusher had a car there lucky we had ian one weekend was there to pick us up but um yeah yeah that's the one we didn't choose next to an airport we just wanted to be at altitude for a feel i think three or four weeks in the end um so that's ah that's the hardest it's when you want a car or a bike but yeah all the other places we lived were just perfect. and and I don't know. Couldn't fault anywhere we lived. It was just all great. It seemed like you've had a really good diversity of training environments as well. They said you had had the altitude, had seemingly like straight up mountains from your doorstep and in a lot of places, it's been really cool to follow along. When you were planning all this out and you're planning all the races that you've done between between Worlds and then ultimately like Madeira and Transfacania,
00:58:59
Speaker
how how were you thinking about where you were when you were racing what you were racing and how everything was building up to ultimately what was i think madeira was the main focus for you yeah it was going to be transhulcania but when i got into madeira then it was yeah i ended up doing madeira as my focus because it was just more relevant to my year i think and it was actually really close to where i was living at the time as well um But yeah, after World Champs, the next six weeks was sort of my own enjoyment. Like, obviously, it's all enjoyable, but that was more about just like living at altitude for forever and just training a lot and yet doing sort of what I feel like and what pops up at the time, which was a lot of vertical races.
00:59:46
Speaker
That's when I got to do some vertical races with Ian and not sort race them, just do them at the end of a massive week of training and just, yeah, enjoy them and push if we want to push and pull back if you don't want push too hard, you know. So i did three vertical races and they're all really, really fun. And ah just like when you go over and live over there, like you just have to do them. Like whether you're just hiking them or you can push as hard as you want the next day, you feel pretty good. Yeah, it's definitely something that Ian is slowly persuading me to to give a go. But I do like what you're saying. like The way that you can use them is so varied. They're not entering a race. I think this is something that stands out from the whole time in the sport is that for you, a race isn't...
01:00:29
Speaker
are 100% all out and the result matters and people care what happens. It's like, it's just there to do a purpose. And that purpose changes depending on the event and depending on the week and how you're feeling on that first step as well. It's, uh, I think it, it's clearly worked, worked well. And the, the races that I've got on it, which I know won't be everything you've, you've you've got the, um, the vertical kilometer in October, Charles de Glier, and then a couple more in France, Switzerland, then Mallorca, Mallorca seems like a bit of a an odd one in the sense of it's a place I spent a lot of time on. It's an island off the coast of Spain. like
01:01:05
Speaker
That's not necessarily a place I would assume that you would. I think I was there i was there for the same reason probably you used to go there for. Yeah. I didn't didn't drink though, but yeah. yeah What are you implying? it's ignore that going to so So that one was more of a a kind of holiday-esque or relaxed that it just happened to coincide with the race or were you still over there for that race?
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'd booked that race like eight months before. Like when I first started planning, I was just looking for a race at the end of the year. I didn't know any of them. If I could go back and change it, even in the moment, I would have, like even the weeks before, I would have changed to Templiers or Saint-Élion, which are two big French races.
01:01:47
Speaker
hands down but i had a like a week of cat like a week of all my friends from when i studied over and in czech republic five years ago we all booked to stay together in majorca have some fun enjoy it so i couldn't get out of it and i thought i'll just do the 20k i know i'm gonna be a mess to to run it and i was an absolute mess because i just shat myself so in that race was horrible and you know it was it was terrible in the end i wish i would have focused more because the guy who won it in the end he just won european champs the up down jan turella so i wish i had i wish i had have like focused it because i was pretty fit at the time i wouldn't have gone anywhere near his time but it would have been cool to have a really good race against like an athlete that good you know
01:02:31
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and was just brought brought the results up now. like yes, Jan was nine minutes up the road from you, but second was two Oh five, 11 third was two Oh five, 19. And then you were fourth in two Oh five 52. So were you in a close race for that whole, whole day? Or is it that,
01:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, times i can literally sat in the bushes. That's my time. Disappeared. I mean, they couldve could have outkicked me for sure at the end, but I was just in the bushes. Yeah, go to the toilet. that man A lot of the national park there has poo bans. Like it literally says on signs, do not go to the toilet in this bush.
01:03:07
Speaker
like as you're racing along there. And there's so many hikers. Yeah, it's terrible. Horrible. It's a very stressful situation to find yourself in. if you're like, well, I need to go. Yeah. and I don't want to go against against the law. yeah and Yeah. And you just couldn't go anywhere. There was no, there was nowhere way to go. yeah But also at the same time, I thought I was in 10th place plus from there. I didn't even know I was in that position.
01:03:29
Speaker
So I had no context at all until you cross the finish line and you're like, oh, those three are getting photos together. Oh, shit. it They were first, second and third. I watched him because you finished along a beach. So I'm like, I watched him finish.
01:03:42
Speaker
How embarrassing. Oh, that's so sad. Yeah. But not embarrassing because I don't care. So yeah. No, no, of course. But like it the same point is, is there you've spoken so much about having probably the best way to describe it is this stoic, uh, nature in, in, in looking at events, good or bad, how they go. But is there, is there a part of you that's just like, ah, that would have been, that kind of sucks.
01:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, especially after seeing European champs and how good that, the the guy who won it was. So, yeah, there is there is part of that, i suppose. Yeah. but i'm not I'm not trying to get it out of you.
01:04:16
Speaker
ah just I think it's it's it's interesting to hear, like, just to hear hear the thought process that you go through. because ah out from the outside looking in you've had a very I would say healthy approach to the sport and you've kept yourself in a really good mindset that has seemingly incredibly paid off as we watch the results build and build and build so I'm just i' I'm curious to tease that out Yeah, that's a bought bit more like retrospectively. So from yeah months down the road, I think about it. Not in the moment, in the months after, I didn't even think about that race and I just sort of went on. But looking back, you go, oh, why didn't I just go better? you know And everyone does that, I think, as well. But it doesn't change how I go into events in the future either. so Yeah, well, hopefully with a slightly more happy stomach.
Race Performances and Strategy Insights
01:04:59
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I've experienced that a lot anyway, so that's all right. Yeah, it's a few few of those. Is that something that you've changed with your nutrition or is is is that a ah different topic?
01:05:12
Speaker
Oh, that was just from just eating like a whole bunch of random stuff and yeah, just being with mates and just eating just horrible food the whole time because you're just hanging out. You're just eating snacks for a few days straight, you know, no real meals. You're just snacking and yeah, yeah no fire. or hard Yeah, yeah. yeah it Being on holiday, exactly, yeah.
01:05:34
Speaker
Yeah. So then the the next kind of the the big thing that at least has a bit more of an international ah knowing was Trans-Grancan area where you came 10th. That was about, was looking at the the dates, six weeks, seven weeks before Madeira. when you're building up to these you kind of spoke about not being super specific ted to any event but was there a change in approach to to transgown canaria and then to madeira were you trying to treat one of them like also madeira like an a-race Hmm, probably similar weighting on both. But when it came to the actual training block, I wanted to be more specific in the block before transgranate canaria, but I had ah like an infection and an injury up to my knee. i had a pulpitus, that thing, but little ball behind your knee.
01:06:24
Speaker
That was all inflamed. And i don't think it was actually an injury. It was from like getting an infection in the front of my knee when I fell in the race prior. So I had to take like 10 days off and barely any training.
01:06:35
Speaker
And I wanted to do like good downhill stimulus. I think we spoke about it before as well. Mm-hmm. where I wanted to do a lot of like quality uphill and then the downhill I was doing throughout the week would have been quite quality, like one or two sessions of actual quality downhill running. So I can prepare well for it, but I didn't get to do that in the end. i ended up doing a lot of like uphill hiking on Stairmaster twice a week. yeah And then in my long runs were like very hiking and on technical terrain because it took a lot of pressure off the pulply tier. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't get to do that specific stuff, but that those Stairmaster sessions were specifically for really Madeira in the future.
01:07:14
Speaker
they were like building a bit of muscular endurance, building just your uphill strength. And then in that next block, I could then focus a bit more on a bit of uphill quality work. From an uphill perspective, choosing the Stairmaster, was that because it was annoying the back of your knee to run or you prefer the Stairmaster to the uphill treadmill? Yeah.
01:07:32
Speaker
Want have access to a StairMaster? Yeah, i really like using it. I think it's great. Yeah, it's a really good tool. It's so underrated. It's just so boring and so hard and it takes you probably two or three weeks to to get good at it.
01:07:44
Speaker
So it doesn't people I don't think people stick with it for long enough in each session and for long enough in the weeks. Ian ian Best does it now a lot. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And has like, yeah, his, his result at Transvolcania, the 24k.
01:08:01
Speaker
So i was sick. Yeah. I have to put that in there. Cause that is like, I knew, I feel like I put it into the world, out into the world. I knew he was going to race really well there for some reason after running the course, like several times.
01:08:14
Speaker
Yeah. Just felt like it was good for him. Yeah. Just like a motor race. You're just running uphill for 20K. Like 10% grade, just consistently running uphill.
01:08:26
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and that's what what going through your Strava files for that. Yeah. probably from 23 when I first heard of your name Buffalo coming through, I always put you in the category of like a good enough runner and a good enough climber, but a great descender, which you you may have seen yourself as as as different to that. But from the files, looking at what you're able to sustain, like maybe over a 10K, you're going to, or a vertical kilometer, you're not going to be able to hold on with with the front pack.
01:08:58
Speaker
But when you start talking about Madeira where you've got a 50k of just climbing, sorry, that's Transvacania, yeah, Transvacania, 50k of climbing, that's kind of like, you you seem to have created this ability to just find a gear and you just stick with it. Like your durability is incredible.
01:09:17
Speaker
Do you put that down to a lot of the stair climber style stuff that you've been doing? No, I think the durability is something that I'm lucky just to have from like a rugby background, a lot of strength and powerlifting in the past, not so much strength training now. But I think, yeah, durability is more something from having a very general sporting and activity background in the past, I think.
01:09:36
Speaker
um yeah i think that's quite a big correlation between a lot of athletes especially trail and ultra runners there when they have like a past of doing a lot of general activity so for myself like farm work um gym training like rugby is very general in the like activity of it like it's an aerobic sport you're running for 80 minutes you're doing a lot of strength power everything so i think that helps with a lot of durability um But yeah, of course, the StairMaster helps a lot with durability as well, but I probably haven't done it enough to actually create that from yeah yeah from those sessions. yeah Okay. So do you feel like you've become a better climber over the last few years or do you feel like what what I'm seeing is has always been there?
01:10:18
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I was always just like trying to push and hold on climbs and like doing so. And even at the even in back ends of races and short races, I felt like I'd be going so slow, but you'd actually be sustaining the pace. it was just the intensity just felt so high and you felt like you're running through custard, but it was actually fine. it was actually fine in the end.
01:10:38
Speaker
um But now I feel like I can, like my breath and feeling in my legs is always feels good. I never feel like tired, which probably means I should push more. But yeah, I just have that feeling of like you you you always have something in your legs, I suppose. Yeah.
01:10:55
Speaker
yeah and And your breath's good. Yeah. That brings me nicely to Madeira because coming second at a World Trail Major, is pretty like it's it's it's pretty incredible. and and And I know that you might say, well, there was a bit of a gap to Antoine who won the race. But to me, the second place, you have to do so many things right across that but five and a half hours to get yourself to that finish line in that position.
01:11:20
Speaker
When you were lining up to start line, I know that you had a bit of, I think I saw in your Strava that you were lacking a bit of confidence in your body. What was going on in your mind? How did you feel like you were? Did you feel like you were ready to do that kind of day or potentially even a ah better day as you lining up?
01:11:36
Speaker
Yeah, I just didn't. I didn't travel very well. we were in La Palma at the time and we had to catch just two flights, but it was like flights from early morning through late afternoon. I don't know. I just didn't feel good.
01:11:47
Speaker
My HIV was really off. My body got very tight, whether it was from like a bit of, um, like a, a bit of pullback, like a bit of tapering sort of feeling when your body just gets tight and couldn't sleep well. And your your heart sort of beats loud when you're going to sleep, those sort of things. They're like the sort of indicators I go like, Oh,
01:12:07
Speaker
we're getting sick or getting a bit over-trained, something like that. But yeah, then um on the morning of the race, I sort of felt okay. I felt good on the morning of the race. So I think in the end it was okay.
01:12:18
Speaker
And I took it out very conservatively for the first few K before we started that big climb. So I think that helped a lot too. I think if i ever pushed just beyond where I should have, I would have just like ruined that race completely. i think that's how my body was. And I pushed that little bit too much that I would have just not been able to get back to feeling good.
01:12:38
Speaker
So yeah, had to sort of keep the race conservative. So how did the race play out then? Cause it sounds like you probably started further back in the pack and made your way through if that was how you started. Yeah, I don't know what happened at the start. They're all very far ahead. The first three women were. At I think it was the first three women. Rachel Drake, that Jane, can't remember her name.
01:12:57
Speaker
Jane Mouse. Yeah, yeah. Like, they're incredible, those two. They're so good. um And I didn't pass Rachel until, like, probably a third of the way up that, like, 2,000-meter climb. Well, I think it's 1,800 meters, but you get 2,000 climbing because, like, ducks down a bit.
01:13:14
Speaker
Yeah. tell it yeah um yes i didn't pass i probably probably in like 10th in the first 5k and then just sort of ran through and ran through and sort of passed people and sometimes i wasn't sure if they were in our race or they were in a different race because the 80 and 110k were on the same course they sort of to our course um yeah it wasn't until i think it was 35k into the course that I knew that I was in I didn't know I asked many times at an aid station what position and am I in and they said third and I was like are we getting translation get yelling different things and I only just sort of had third and i was like all right that's good I just got to
01:14:00
Speaker
Relax now and chill. And the Spanish guy, I did know who he was when I passed him and he didn't look in good nick. He didn't look like comfortable, quite strong. Cause I'd say he would have been running with Antoine and Antoine who got third. They both ran, they all ran very fast up to the top of that peak basically.
01:14:20
Speaker
um But yeah, remember passing him and thinking to myself, I don't reckon he will pass me because I feel pretty good and he looked pretty bad, but he still had 20 something K to go. so yeah, I wasn't too sure. And then i ended up within 2K of that, I think around 2K of that aid station, I was descending quite quickly and caught up to Anton, the Swedish guy.
01:14:43
Speaker
And um yeah, he was in all sorts of pain. Like he just said he pushed too hard and was just wrecked. And I actually wanted to run with him because I thought, if we run together, we can like, know, run faster. And I sort of talked to him on the bus before and he had like such a specific like plan for that race. Like he's so just dar driven and like so set on like his paces and he'd run the whole course and knew the winning time would be five hours 20 and that's what time he was going to run.
01:15:12
Speaker
And I think he ran a bit slower because he blew up a bit. But then in the end, obviously... Antoine ran 503, I think, which is just crazy. Even with considering that course in previous years has changed with where you dip down to two thirds of the way.
01:15:31
Speaker
It's a little bit longer. And then one time last year, they had two climbs instead of one big climb, but way less technical. Even when you look at all that, his time there is just like, what? It's just... so fast. Like his climbing is as fast as anyone that's ever ran the course.
01:15:46
Speaker
And think T-Belt Gravias raced that course and climbed that climb. And he was like fair bit faster than him through all of it. So yeah, no one was expecting anyone to run that fast.
01:15:58
Speaker
um Except I think Matt Dunn was. matt Matt, who I stayed with, was like, yeah, he's like next level. Antoine is like this... yeah superior athlete in the world of yeah in that field yeah and you were telling me before we started he just had a really good result at european yeah he was he was third in the end so he was just behind daniel patas and ahead of alain santamaria and steon so yeah now looking back i'm like oh that madeira's all i should have been a fair way back from him that's okay
01:16:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
Training Routines and Adaptation to Life Changes
01:16:31
Speaker
Well, especially when you're put into a case of realistically, if you're coming third at Europeans, you're in a conversation as the top five, top 10 athlete in the world at that, at that distance. And you're only coming in 20 minutes back from him in second place ahead of a lot of very good names behind you. It's yeah. It,
01:16:49
Speaker
on paper is an incredible result. When you reflect now and think about the work you had done between worlds coming into Madeira, what do you feel like really worked for you? where do you feel like you developed and and what are you now taking from Madeira to go forward to the rest this year? um I think the the blocks of like sort five or six weeks are really good for a race. if you Not if you're going to be specific, but just don't I feel like I don't need to do massive long blocks into a race when I have done that.
01:17:18
Speaker
doesn't sort of work super well for me. So I think it's better to yeah do shorter blocks and keep the training quite general, but maybe just lean into certain things and try to – this probably sounds very – Yeah, but just try to like lean each block into the next in a way that sort of progresses a little bit.
01:17:38
Speaker
Like if you're like, ah what's an example? For example, the past four or five weeks, I've been doing a lot of like fast, short sessions, not to get faster at a 5K, but just to prepare my body for that. I might do some flatter, longer sessions in the next block. So just making sure that my system and body is ready to be able to handle like that type of impact. So you're like training to train in the end. You're not like,
01:18:01
Speaker
training to really perform on a race you're just constantly training to make the next block a little bit better and then hopefully each race kind of progresses as well and i don't know that was a terrible explanation but just yeah i i was following it and i agree as we speak we spoke about offline before i think that's a very it was a very good way to build a season and it's it's all about building a quality to then be able to extend it or to qualify however you want to go about it but it all needs to connect and progress like that's basic training theory that's basically pre-realization of anything so i think it makes makes a lot of sense at least at least to me now that you're back you're back working on the farm training looks very different to when you were living in europe how how have you managed that adjustment and coming back into it and and how are you fitting in what's still a ah pretty high training load just a lot of easy jogging yeah i just jog to work jog home from work
01:18:53
Speaker
jog a lot on the weekends and just don't do anything that's too hard as as in like don't like if i'm doing a very like my sessions are so short if i'm going to do one and i just keep everything super easy um i don't think i did other than like those very short um flat sessions like on a bit of concrete I didn't do any intensity at all for the past five or six weeks, I think, and raced at Yandina on the weekend and just ran a pace that was very comfortable and very enjoyable and sort of, I don't know, nothing changed. I don't know if I could have, yeah, if I had done intensity during that period and had I been resting fully and not working, it would have been any much easier, you know?
01:19:32
Speaker
So, yeah. I don't know. I think that yeah your body can hold on to a lot of what it's done, which a lot of athletes say, like a lot of athletes worry so much that, Oh, I'm going to lose so much fitness over this period of time because this happened. But in the end,
01:19:48
Speaker
nothing happens, they're still really fit. I mean, a good example is Ben Duffers. Like hit he went from being so injured and not training at all. So I shouldn't say so injured. He had a pretty bad injury, took a lot of time off, biked quite a lot, but not a tonne.
01:20:06
Speaker
And then started doing some uphill running, I think, and some different types of training. And then was just setting these segment records on climbs that I've done in the past. And lots of people have tried to push hard on good runners.
01:20:17
Speaker
And he's as good as ever. And then runs at UTA and it's unreal. So, yeah, I think that don't have to stress too much about it things falling away. Yeah. And what you said there is as well is not worrying about something that that isn't an option. Like you need to work, you need to earn money. So why, why would you get to the finish line and be, Oh, I wonder how much faster I could go if I didn't have these things, because that's just not, it's not a possibility or,
01:20:44
Speaker
like it's not feasible so i as as this whole whole conversation has shown you just got a very uh i said like constructive and positive view on it of being like this is what it is and this is how i'm gonna do it and that's it we just yeah yeah get white it's it's very so it's it's very considered but it's very simple if that makes sense yeah yeah yeah you still try to think a bit about what i'm doing Yeah. but Not, not too much. And don't like look into what you, I don't look into what it could be like. I think that's what also that ties back to the social media side of things, because if you're always looking at what other people are doing, then you're looking at what it could be like, Oh, what if my like life was like this? So what if I was sponsored?
01:21:27
Speaker
That'd be easier, but I don't know. Sometimes it's not. And it's just yourself stressing yourself out.
Approach to Sponsorships and Frugal Living
01:21:33
Speaker
Well, and you've you've mentioned a couple times now sponsorships. Having a second at World Trail Majors, World Trail Majors definitely doesn't carry the weight that a golden ticket would have or a major at a UTMB final, but it still has some relevance. I've seen different shoe brands pop up as infotesting like Topo and Anter on your Strava. Is pursuing a sponsor something you are thinking about? Have people been reaching out to you? Do you want one? No, no one's really reached out. I think that I have good relationships with people that happen to work as like either distributors or for a brand in design and they're more than happy to send me gear. And yeah, if they want some, like with Anta, for example, I'm doing a few gear reviews.
01:22:17
Speaker
for them because they're bringing out a lot of new shoes and they want a lot of people outside of China to review them as well. Um, yeah, if anyone else wants to do it, I'm more than happy to put you in touch. I'm trying, I'm trying to find people that want to do similar.
01:22:30
Speaker
Um, but Yeah, like obviously open to it, but I also understand the world of being in Australia and working with distributors rather than brands. is It's not really being an athlete for a brand. So I'm i'm not too stressed about going for any sponsorships.
01:22:47
Speaker
But obviously really excited to talk to people about it. Like when there are brands that want to have a conversation and a chat. Yeah, I love to talk about yeah what options there are and if it is literally just wearing some gear at a race and there's no contract yeah more than happy to do that because gear's good and my gear stinks but no no i'm ah like seriously i'm not yeah too stressed and i know now that i can do the things that I need to do on my own by myself with help from my, like being able to work here on a farm. My family works here too. So I have food prepared by my mom at the moment, which is really good. And yeah.
01:23:27
Speaker
So. doing having Having all that, I know that it can be done. So yeah, there's no worry in adding more on top of that at the moment. I guess it probably does say that if we do see you pop up in in a brand's gear, we know that it's going to be a really authentic fit because you're not out there just trying to pursue whatever you can get your your hands on. Or if they give me lots of money. so Yeah. yeah No, I don't mean that. We can authentically want a lot of money. It's fine.
01:23:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah But at the same time, like I can stretch money so far. I think that's a skill that I have that might make it look like I have more resources than what I like what i do because, yeah, I got to live in Europe for seven months and i yeah you should see my tax return that's coming up. Like the amount I is so little, so, so little.
01:24:22
Speaker
Like embarrassingly little. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of people that will assume that what you did is completely out of reach, unattainable for them. But it's probably more of a case of you you have a certain mindset and approach to it. of Like, I am happy to be eating lentils and rice and beans if that allows me to go and do this thing.
01:24:41
Speaker
Yeah. And it's probably... Yeah. And stripping back all your your diet and just adding the things that are necessary for for fueling. like Like, yes, I do eat like the the lentils and rice when i things get a bit tight. But it also has like...
01:24:55
Speaker
literally seven to 10 different vegetables finally cut up through it. And it's actually a very nutritious meal, but it's probably not what people want every single day and variety and spending a bit more money on nicer tasting food, nicer brands. I don't know.
01:25:12
Speaker
Yeah. Probably looks a bit better, but I actually think my diet has been one of the like best it's ever been when things are really tight because you really look at what food is actually going to be beneficial for your training rather than just going to the shops and oh that looks tasty it's like 10 bucks a kilo for some tomatoes and it's like damn it's so expensive yeah Yeah.
Future Race Plans and High-Volume Training Weeks
01:25:35
Speaker
No, it is like a thing with a lot of dieting is you you remove the things that aren't needed. Like you say, like if your house is cluttered and you you have stuff that that doesn't need to be there, a simple life is a good life for a lot of people. um So I think I can definitely see how how that's worked well for you. As we're looking forward now, you've already you've already put out there that you're looking to do GPT. We spoke about that at start of the year when you were on the podcast.
01:25:58
Speaker
what's what's likely to fill the gap between now and gpt uh it doesn't have to be set in stone but just ideas yeah i think transcends or transcend is definitely set in stone and i'm in the works of also getting over to vietnam and racing at the at supper in supper which has always been a bit of like not a dream but vietnam is the first country ever visited on my like ever but i solo traveled there a bit And obviously looking back, you're like, there's some big, cool mountains there. And it's a very different place to race. Like Southeast Asia very different to the rest of the world when it comes to running and racing and trail running. So yeah, I'm really excited to go and run there. I think that will be
01:26:40
Speaker
Really cool. Yeah, really enjoyable, I think. And really hard. yeah Yeah. And is anything between that and GPT? um I think I will like rest after that and then get in a good training block before GPT.
01:26:55
Speaker
um But do something similar, so race four weeks after it either. um asia pacific so cozy i think after gpt so sort of two blocks of two races four weeks apart but now i've practiced that a couple times racing 50 well marathon to 60k um those distances those time durations apart and i think it actually works really well hmm Cool.
01:27:21
Speaker
Fun. i Definitely excited to follow how that that year goes. Just bring us back to earlier in the conversation when I asked about the the takeaways that the version of you now looking back at the version of you 2022. Have you had any thoughts about what you feel like you did? you You did well or didn't do well or anything you do differently?
01:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think the the good thing is ignoring everything else, like the noise around like what i don't know what to do. Just yeah ignore a lot of that. Maybe do some of a little bit of your own research. Don't look into two things too much, though, and just go out and do the things that you want to do but in a smarter way.
01:27:59
Speaker
So, yeah, if you want to be like a really good try runner and race 50, 100 in the future... then yeah, that's that's perfect. That's great. and But if you want to do that, then yeah, maybe look at a way that's like, that is progressive and works and yeah, do whatever you want within like um like ah a limit, or within like a boundary, I guess. That's basically what I did is just, i was like, I can race as much as I want over 20, 30 K. Nothing can stop me from doing that.
01:28:29
Speaker
I think it's a bit silly to go and do that same thing with 100 K, but some people it works for. But yeah, but I thought for myself, that's probably not going to work. And also if I'm training, like, for example, 2023 during the golden, when I was doing some of those golden trail races, I was running like 140, 150 three, more than that, actually to climbing and then racing.
01:28:53
Speaker
on the back of that rig like that's really good for durability like that's it's not optimal for racing those races but geez i think it's helped in the future because i didn't look at those races as like the be all and end all so now looking back i'm like that's probably really really helpful for the years after definitely this is a big weeks to put a race at the end of them Yeah, but the the good thing is, and Vlad has probably mentioned this a bit, but when you are training at a higher volume, you you really can't push your body super, super hard at like a fast pace. You can run and race really well at the end of those big weeks, but you can't put your
Concluding Thoughts and Listener Invitation
01:29:30
Speaker
body... It's really hard to actually put your body into a really... um
01:29:34
Speaker
destroyed state because you're already a bit you're already a bit tired you can't actually push it that hard like literally can't so it's almost like a safe this is not a recommendation at all but it's almost like it's almost like a safety barrier you're giving yourself if you're pushing hard at the end of a big volume week at like an event yeah No, that makes sense. I can follow that. But I think also having that bit of a non-advice at 90 minutes in is probably a good thing as well.
01:30:01
Speaker
Just in case. Yeah, that's not really it. That's not lack of advice. But yeah, I think, yeah. Depends what type of athlete you are. I think depends what time of run of you runner you are. Yes, definitely. Definitely. Cool. Billy, thank you for for coming on and and doing this. It's good to have you back on and hear a bit more about the last couple of years, but also hope a bit more about your backstory. I really appreciate the ah the time tonight.
01:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, cool. And for anyone listening, like if you do want to know how to travel and um do races really cheaply and really affordably, just send me a message and yeah, I'll show you how to do it cheaply, affordably and yeah, do it how you want to do it. And you can definitely go and do it for a very low cost. Yeah.
01:30:43
Speaker
We're fortunate in Australia with a lot of purchasing power in other countries. Like it's very, very, very, very lucky to be able to have a high minimum wage, be to save lots of money in certain circumstances and yeah, be able to do these things. Beautiful. Well, hopefully. There are plenty of people listening, especially probably younger athletes that have the capacity and don't have the obligations that can go and explore this and have bit of fun with that. But good luck for the rest of the year, Billy. We'll be following along very closely for Transcend and then everything that follows on from there. And we'll catch up soon.
01:31:17
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you James. Thanks again to Billy for coming back on the show. I really enjoyed this one. I've been looking forward to getting a chance to go long form with Billy for a while. And I think what stood out to me most is just how grounded Billy's approach is. He's clearly chasing big goals. He's clearly operating at a very high level now, but there isn't a lot of noise around it. There's not much fluff. He trains a lot.
01:31:41
Speaker
He races quite a lot. He learns from these things, he strips back what he doesn't need, and he just keeps finding a way to make it work. He's very considered, he's very thought out, but he keeps it simple on the surface.
01:31:53
Speaker
And I think there's something really useful in that for a lot of us. Not everyone is going to go and live in Europe on cheap. We're not all going to go race world trail majors, especially not get on the podium. We're not going to run the kind of volume that Billy does. But there's a bigger lesson and it's around working with the life you actually have, being patient with that process and not needing everything to be perfect before you take the next step.
01:32:16
Speaker
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01:32:32
Speaker
Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you next time on Peep Suits.